Stargate: Return of the Ancients, Season 1, 10,11
by Aer-ki Jyr
Summary: Episode, "Epiphany" Part 1 and Part 2
1. Chapter 1

General Carter sat alone in her small quarters onboard the _Odyssey_ rereading the recent mission report from Colonel Ellis. The _Apollo_ had come across a stray Wraith cruiser…and destroyed it. Carter didn't know if this was a good thing or bad, but she was concerned that the battle had been more the result of impatience and boredom than it had been mere coincidence.

She too was feeling the strain. With so little to do but wait and see if their detection traps signaled a response, Carter had started to reread the books that she'd brought with her in the spare hours between random searches of the Asgard database. She'd even started to learn the Asgard written language out of sheer boredom…and she knew her crew were just as bad off as her, if not worse.

So it wasn't unexpected to hear that Ellis had found some target practice. Part of Carter wished that the _Odyssey_ had come across a cruiser or two themselves…but they hadn't. She'd kept the ship in interstellar space nearly all the time, and the odds of someone stumbling onto their position were next to zero.

She didn't even have the luxury of an occasional spat with McKay, who had decided it was best if he remained onboard the _Daedalus_ for the rest of this 'over-extended' mission. At the time she'd wholeheartedly agreed, but now she was craving anything that would break up the dullness that was saturating the ship.

Reluctant as she was at first, Carter had begun to get to know Woolsey a bit better just to pass the time, and the more she talked with the man the more she started to see that he was more than just suit, tie, and protocol. They discussed any number of things ranging from their current mission to the ethics of offworld exploration vs. the risk of cultural contamination. She liked getting a different perspective on things…not that she agreed with him all the time…but some things the man said made sense, and she thought she was starting to understand how the I.O.A. thought.

Up until now, frankly, she'd considered them to be a group of naïve bureaucrats more adept at screwing things up than accomplishing anything positive, but after discussing several sensitive issues with Woolsey she started to get the sense that from their own point of view they were still trying to do what was best for Earth. The problem, she had finally concluded, lay in the selection of inexperienced persons for positions of power over the ones that actually knew what they were doing.

The I.O.A. governing council was so unaccustomed to life outside of cliché Earth culture that they couldn't help but get so many things turned around. And yes, while there was always going to be some corruption in the ranks, she thought most of the trouble with the I.O.A. was due to sheer ignorance…and ignorance was curable.

Since she had a copious amount of spare time on her hands, Carter had begun writing a report that she intended to deliver to General O'Neill detailing the flaws within the I.O.A. and how they might combat such negatives.

For starters, she'd come up with a plan to have any I.O.A. personnel that would be working hand in hand with the US military go through sort of a 'basic training' course for stargate operations. It would include basic knowledge of Earth and its allies, an overview of the history of the SGC, at least one trip offworld, and a 'what if' test designed to bring up potential scenarios and let the I.O.A. personnel see how much they really didn't know in addition to the consequences that such bad decisions would have in the 'world' beyond Earth.

She also recommended that more former SGC personnel be assigned to I.O.A. posts, given that they had the needed experience. She'd even went so far as to suggest a few names, starting with Major Davis, who she thought would fit the position nicely.

Bottom line, she didn't just want to write the I.O.A. off as incurable, especially given that their leadership didn't look to be in jeopardy. While the stargate was still property of the US military…and that wasn't likely to ever change…the SGC could still opt out of I.O.A. funds and return to unilateral operations.

That Carter didn't think had a snowball's chance in hell of ever happening. Once the other countries got their fingers into the mix they'd be hard pressed to get them out again. So it seemed the situation would remain status quo…which also meant that changes had to be made within the system, because with the way things had been going lately with the I.O.A., Carter didn't think Earth had much luck left in its account, and if something wasn't done they'd end up biting the bullet sooner or later.

She'd passed a few of these ideas onto Woolsey's plate for consideration and had been pleasantly surprised to hear him agree with her. He even went so far as to suggest more aggressive indoctrination training in order to make sure that the oversight had the proper mental framework to make necessary decisions.

Carter skeptically assumed part of Woolsey's agreement was based in the fact that such measures would aid his rise within the organization, considering the experience his tenure as commander of Atlantis had granted him, but the fact that he was open to some of her ideas was encouraging none the less.

A small part of her still wanted to agree with Sheppard's solution…cut them out entirely and go rogue…but she knew that wasn't an option with Earth or even the SGC.

No…if something was going to be done it would have to occur from the inside, and the more clout one had the more receptive others would be to that change. O'Neill couldn't be counted on to change everything on his own. He would need help. By bringing Atlantis back into the fold not only would she be regaining the technology and knowledge of the Ancients for Earth, she would be gaining significant prestige and political capital to be used in the game of influence that seemed to drive all decision making within the upper levels of military and civilian command.

Carter sighed. Ten years ago she wouldn't have agreed with herself. She'd been an idealist, concerned with the moment and not able to see the bigger picture as it unfolded around her. She'd had faith in their leadership, spoiled in part by Hammond no doubt, until time and again she'd been forced to face the hard truth about basic Human nature.

The negative outweighed the positive, and in order to make any progress one had to play the survivor's game in order to win out in the long term.

In the past she'd been blinded by the short term, unable to see the wheels within wheels that existed within the Air Force…let alone within the I.O.A. where such things dominated every facet of every decision they made. Given that sort of environment, Carter didn't hold out much hope for any competent leadership.

Which was why she proposed that the I.O.A. needed members with offworld experience…specifically the experience of former SGC personnel. Given everything that she'd seen and done, there was no way that she could make the same mistakes their leadership was currently making had she been in their position. Carter firmly believed that with an experience prerequisite for all I.O.A. personnel the voices of sanity could combat the corrupt environment that the organization wallowed in and morph it into more of an offshoot of the original SGC concept rather than have it continue as a purely political body.

To this end, they would also need to incorporate more non-US personnel into the SGC framework in order that they could get the needed experience. Carter figured she'd have to have a long discussion with O'Neill before he'd ever agree to that, but in the end she thought that he would see the benefits of such a change…especially since the underlying purpose was to sneakily turn them to the darkside, as the career politicians might put it.

The intercom sounded with a quiet beep, but within the silence of Carter's quarters it was unbearably loud.

"Carter here," she answered, stepping over to the wall-mounted intercom.

"General, we have a new message packet from the _Daedalus_."

"On my way to the bridge," Carter said, darting out the door. Finally, something fresh to chew on.

* * *

"What have we got?" Carter asked as she hurriedly walked onto the bridge.

"See for yourself," the young Lieutenant said, stepping aside from one of the wall terminals so she could read the brief message.

PEGASUS NATIVES ALLIGNED WITH ATLANTIS HAVE RETURNED TO THREE OF THE WORLDS UNDER OUR SURVEILLANCE. REPORTS INDICATE THAT THEY ARE ON A THREE DAY PASS AND WILL RETURN THROUGH THE GATE WHEN THEIR LEAVE EXPIRES. EXPECT TO HAVE ATLANTIS'S NEW ADDRESS WITHIN THREE DAYS.

LOOKS LIKE THE PARTY IS ABOUT TO START. – CALDWELL

Carter turned back to her bridge crew smiling. "Everyone," she announced loudly to get their attention. "No, wait a minute," she said, walking over to her captain's chair, "this is something the whole crew should know about."

She activated the ship-wide intercom. "Attention: this is General Carter. I know the last 14 months have been hard on you…and I'll admit they've been hard on me too. I appreciate your patience and dedication to your duty. You are all a credit to your uniform, and I'd expect nothing less from such a fine crew."

"I've just received a report from the _Daedalus_ that I thought you'd like to be made aware of. They say that they've found members of Atlantis's army returning to their homeworlds. If our intelligence is correct, they will be returning to Atlantis after a short leave of duty. When they do, we'll finally be able to ascertain the stargate address for the city, and from it we can deduce their exact spatial coordinates."

"When we do, we'll finally have a chance to complete our mission and return home. I want all personnel to begin readying themselves for whatever roll you will play in the assault on Atlantis. If nothing else, get up off your backsides and shake off the dust you've accumulated over the past year."

"The time for waiting is over. Now we get to do what we came here to do," Carter finished.

The bridge crew burst out in a round of cheers and clapping. They were clearly excited, but also relieved. It had been a long time in coming…now they just had to find a way to pull it off.

_Easier said than done_, Carter thought to herself.


	2. Chapter 2

Ishta waited patiently inside her tent, her legs crossed before her as she sat in a meditative pose on the dirt floor. The Hak'tyl sentries had reported that they would soon be receiving a visitor…one that Ishta was eager to meet.

She wouldn't let it show, of course. She would continue her meditation uninterrupted and wait for him to come to her, but inside she was overly pleased that he had returned. It had been a long time since he had graced her presence.

Ishta did not know why he had come, and largely doubted it was to see her alone, but she held hopes that that was still part of his purpose here. By the rustle of the guards outside her tent she sensed she would soon find out.

The visitor pulled aside the curtain that blocked the outside sunlight, illuminating Ishta's golden hair in reflective radiance for a brief moment before he let the cloth slide back into place behind him. Teal'c bowed in greeting.

"_Why have you come here?_" Ishta asked, not bothering to look at him, her eyes still closed.

Teal'c stood up straight, slightly miffed at her tone. "_Is my presence unwelcome?_"

"_That was not my question_," she said stoically.

Teal'c nodded slightly, conceding the point. "_I have come to speak with you of the future of the Jaffa Nation_."

"_What of it?_" she asked, opening her eyes and slowly standing to face him.

Teal'c smiled guardedly. "_Though I am here on business, I would be remiss if I did not mention how good it is to see you once again._"

Ishta's expression softened slightly. "_I am not hard to find, Teal'c_."

"_Perhaps not_," he agreed, "_but recent events have drawn my attention elsewhere…compounded ever more so by the Hak'tyl's withdrawal from the council_."

"_You wish us to return? That is your purpose here, then?_" she asked skeptically.

"_I wish to know why_," Teal'c pleaded. "_The Jaffa Nation is crumbling, and your absence has only hastened that fall._"

"_Please, have a seat_," Ishta insisted, sitting herself on a low chair.

Teal'c relented his haste and joined her on a slightly higher stool, which only further exaggerated their height difference.

"_Long ago, when the Hak'tyl first banded together, we all swore an oath, stating that if and when the day of our freedom ever came to pass we would never again submit to another's rule. We have withdrawn in order to honor that oath_," Ishta said simply.

"_You compare the council to the oppression of the Goa'uld?_" Teal'c accused her.

"_Never_," she said quickly. "_But the original premise of the Jaffa Nation has not been upheld. Once again we found ourselves to be servants to a new master, and with a choice to make. Leave our Jaffa brotherhood or sacrifice our freedom. We chose freedom_."

Teal'c glared at her. "_The Jaffa Nation offers freedom to all Jaffa…it does not take it from them_."

"_What would you call it then, when another is telling your people what they can and cannot do?_"

"_We must have a central government in order to maintain cohesion_," Teal'c argued. "_Without it we will become scattered and divisive_."

"_And is a central government worth the lack of freedom?_" Ishta asked quietly. "_Was our battle cry all those years one of Jaffa government…or one of freedom?_"

Teal'c's eyes narrowed. "_You believe both cannot be had?_"

"_I do_," she said, sipping from a nearby cup of herbal tea.

"_Why then did you join the council in the beginning?_"

"_We naively thought that the council would be a forum for all Jaffa to cooperate and coordinate their efforts for the common good. When it began issuing edicts and enacting laws over the Hak'tyl that we did not want…that was when we began to lose our freedom. Our subsequent withdrawal was a foregone conclusion that the council would have seen had you bothered to learn of our ways before you started to tell us what to do_."

"_The Hak'tyl were once part of the council_," Teal'c countered.

"_Yes…despite our better judgement we did attempt to work out a solution, mostly at my behest. I thought you, Bra'tac, and others that I have come to respect would act with wisdom rather than become the puppets of the Tau'ri_."

"_The Tau'ri are largely responsible for our freedom_," Teal'c reminded her. "_And the Jaffa are puppets of no one_."

"_Yet you have adopted their form of government_," Ishta said, her voice cooling just a bit. "_One in which a group of Jaffa as small in number as the Hak'tyl has no voice. Only the large in number wield power, and those smaller than them become their thralls_."

"_Who has poisoned your mind with these lies?_" Teal'c said angrily. "_Democracy is the only viable future for the Jaffa. We must govern ourselves and not let a few individuals hold sway over our destiny…and if we should select a corrupt leader, what other form of government offers such an ease of removal? In any other system there would be blood-letting involved. Democracy is the means for a peaceful future for the Jaffa, and while we have experienced early troubles, we cannot shy from the task. Instead we must press on with increased diligence and vow to never settle for less than a unified Jaffa civilization_."

"_What if we don't want to be unified?_" Ishta asked, sipping from her cup again and staring at Teal'c over the rim. "_Would you force it on us?_"

"_Unity is the only chance we have of continued survival_," Teal'c said, starting to get upset with Ishta's stubbornness. "_Either we band together or we will tear each other apart_."

"_That is the way it has been for centuries_," she reminded him. "_And I would ask whether you consider our freedom as a right to choose the lives we live?_"

"_Of course_," Teal'c all but growled.

"_And if the Hak'tyl wish to live independently…_"

"_It is your right to choose_," Teal'c admitted, "_but I fear you are making a grave mistake. I am not here to demand that you return, only to argue the wisdom in such a move_."

"_That distinction is why you are still welcome amongst the Hak'tyl…_" Ishta informed/warned him. "_Not all are granted the same privilege_."

"_You have had problems?_"

"_Nothing we could not handle_," she said dismissively. "_But there are those within your precious Jaffa Nation that are using your dreams of unity as a cloak for their own ambitions_."

"_Of this I am well aware_," Teal'c said regretfully.

"_And yet you still work with them?_"

"_I have not given up all hope_," Teal'c admitted, "_but I am through trying to argue sanity to the council. Our only hope is to convince the masses of true wisdom and to elect new leaders a year from now_."

"_And in the mean time, you allow the current leaders to do as they please?_" Ishta said condescendingly. "_That is not the Jaffa way_."

"_You would have me forcibly remove them?_"

"_Retribution must be swift if it is to be effective_," she counseled.

"_Such an action_," Teal'c cautioned, "_would be the death knell of our fragile democracy_."

"_Let it die then_," Ishta said to Teal'c chagrin. The reaction on his face told her all she needed to know. In the few times they had spent together she had become adept at reading his emotions. "_You've committed yourself wholly…and are blinded to other possibilities_."

Teal'c sighed and leaned back, nearly tipping over on his stool. "_Honestly, I do not know what to do_."

Ishta smiled unguardedly. "_Free yourself of your burdens and your path will become clear_."

"_You would have me quit the council?_"

She shrugged. "_Do what you must. But it would be folly to continue forward while your vision is obscured_."

Teal'c looked down at the ground for a moment, then back up at the fragile, yet beautiful eyes staring back at him. "_What do you know of Dakara?_"

The question seemed to unsettle her slightly, in so much as she readjusted her seat distractedly. "_If not for our vow, I would have joined them already_."

Teal'c's jaw dropped. "_How can you speak of freedom on one hand and approve of renewed servitude on the other?_"

"_We have the freedom to choose_," Ishta said quietly. "_To serve or not to serve_."

She glanced in the direction of the guards outside then lowered her voice. "_Since our victory over the Goa'uld I have lacked a purpose in my life and have found myself lesser for it. We no longer have any goals to work towards…no real goals, at least. None that you are willing to dedicate your entire life, your very soul towards. I have found that once your life takes on a measure of significance, you cannot return to the mundane and be content_."

Teal'c's eyes met hers. "_I know of what you speak, and I do not disagree_."

She stared back at him. "_You tried to recreate that purpose with your efforts to construct the Jaffa Nation…and failed. Yet it isn't within you to give up, so you continue on hopelessly_."

"_Our fight for freedom was considered hopeless once_," he reminded her.

"_Yet it was a worthy cause_," she countered. "_Your current one is not…which is why you cannot find your path_."

Teal'c smiled humorlessly. "_Stubborn pride demands that I disagree with you_."

"_But you hear the wisdom in my words_."

"_Indeed I do_."

Ishta stood suddenly. "_Come with me_," she said, marching out of the tent. Teal'c raised an eyebrow, unsure of her intentions, and followed in her wake. She led him outside, down a small trail across a grassy plain until they arrived at what looked to be some type of training circle. Ishta pulled two wooden staffs out of a concealed storage compartment, half buried within the nearby grasses and tossed one to Teal'c.

"_If one is to rediscover their path_," Ishta stated loudly, twirling her weapon theatrically, "_then one must start at the beginning. You were a warrior once, then lost your way in a sea of words. Let the staff reawaken your senses and clear your mind_."

"_As you wish_," Teal'c said, taking up a guard stance. Neither of them moved for nearly a minute.

"_Why do you delay?_" Ishta asked.

"_I await your move_," Teal'c said passively.

"_A warrior does not wait…a warrior acts. Attack me_," she challenged.

Teal'c swung his staff wide to his left in a one handed grip. "_Very well_," he said, attacking her using only the one hand to wield his staff.

Ishta made him pay for his arrogance within four moves, digging her staff into his groin in a nasty upward slash, using her superior two handed grip to overcome his insufficient block.

He backpedaled, looking up at her with protest…only to take a wicked lash across the face that drew blood, but even then she didn't relent. Ishta attacked him with every underhanded move she could think of, never giving him a moment to relax. She forced him to not only defend himself, but to go on the offensive in order to disable her.

Five minutes later Ishta lay pinned to the ground with Teal'c's hand around her throat. "_You try my patience, woman_."

She kicked at his leg uselessly. "_A real…warrior…wouldn't have…been caught…off…guard_," she struggled to say through his chokehold.

Angrily he punched her in the stomach then released her. She kicked his leg in spite as he walked her off.

"_You're welcome_," she told him.

"_For what?_" he asked with disgust.

"_For giving you an enemy you could hit back_," she said, spitting out the blood from a busted lip.

He stopped walking. "_You were deliberately trying to provoke me?_"

"_You needed to fight me out of anger_," she explained, dusting her leather pants off. "_More than a sparring session would have allowed_."

"_Because I haven't been able to strike at my real enemies_," Teal'c said, following her line of thought.

"_An enemy is meant to be fought, Teal'c, not negotiated with_," she said, retrieving both of their staffs and returning them to their storage container. "_Every time you hold yourself back from throttling the life out of them you lose a bit of yourself. I know I did. The only thing that saved me was the fight to save some of my sisters from the fire, while I had to stand by and watch the others… One must oppose evil with all of their being, lest they be consumed or corrupted by it_."

She looked up at him. "_Tell me it didn't feel good thrashing me after I'd hurt you_."

"_It did_," he admitted.

"_When was the last time you had a real fight?_" she asked, already suspecting his answer.

"_Too long_," he said, realizing she was right. "_I've lost my edge…and I don't remember it happening_."

"_You were a lone warrior once. I suggest that's where you begin again_."

Teal'c looked down at his hands, clenching and unclenching them as if he hadn't seen them in a very long time. "_What has happened to me? Where did I go wrong?_"

Ishta grabbed him by the shoulder. "_You will figure that out after you've found yourself…not before_."

Teal'c stood up straight, muscles rippling with a renewed determination. "I_ must take my leave of you_," he said, walking off in the direction of the gate.

"_You owe me_," she called out behind him.

"_Indeed_."


	3. Chapter 3

After their three days of leave on Jolsic, the five members of Green Team and two members of Blue Team trudged back to the stargate together suffering from a massive hangover. Their welcome back celebration had been a huge event for the five villages on the planet, made even more joyous by the positive changes they observed within the men. They had become heroes to their people…and as soon as they had the opportunity they did the very unhero-like, yet culturally acceptable, deed of getting drop-dead drunk.

The two members of Blue Team didn't see this as a problem, aside from the pain they were now experiencing. Green Team, however, knew they'd get punished by Ronon upon their return for coming back unfit for duty. Two of them wanted to delay their return until the effects had worn off, but the third reminded them that Ronon would be just as pissed, if not more so, if they didn't return to Yavin on time…and they'd probably never be granted leave again.

One of the Blue Team members clumsily punched in the address for Yavin and misdialed in the process. The stargate didn't activate and the man was pushed aside by Ferris of Green Team.

"Idiot," he muttered as he dialed the correct address. The wormhole activated and the five men walked through.

In a nearby tree, high up in the branches above the gate, a tiny surveillance camera nailed into the wood of the trunk recorded with perfect clarity both the inaccurate address that went nowhere and the correct address for Yavin.

Forty three minutes later the data from the past hour was transmitted in a compressed burst to a nearby receiver that then relayed the intel through subspace to the _Daedalus_, where Dr. McKay then grumpily queried the gate system for the most recent spatial coordinates of the stargate in question…completely unaware that the coordinates were for another planet and not the city of Atlantis.

* * *

Teal'c stood outside the council chambers, mulling over if what he was about to do was wisdom or madness. Belatedly, he recognized his own hesitation and mentally scolded himself for it. Hesitation got one killed. He must act swiftly and with purpose. How long, he wondered, had he been like this? No more.

Teal'c slammed open the council doors and stormed into the meeting that he was late for. All eyes turned toward him, reprimand on their faces…which was quickly replaced by shock as Teal'c punched the nearest council member out of his seat.

"_Teal'c!_" Herran shouted in protest, to no avail. The former First Prime went on a rampage, attacking any and all council members within reach. Those on the other side of the room moved to restrain him, but he shook them off and slowly added them to his victims list.

Several council members, seeing the ease at which Teal'c defeated the others, bolted towards the open doors but Teal'c got back there first. He punched one in the throat, stunning but not killing him. He kicked aside the falling man and clothes-lined another trying to slip past. Four others stood opposite Teal'c on the other side of the chamber, Herran included.

"_What are you doing!_" the leader of the Jaffa Nation shouted.

"_Releasing my burdens_," Teal'c said sarcastically, kicking down one of the men struggling to stand back up. "_Your collective greed and incompetence have doomed the Jaffa Nation to failure. I have tolerated your corruption in the hopes that some progress could be made. That was my error. I make it no longer_," he said angrily, walking forward toward the remaining conscious council members.

A minute and a half later Teal'c walked out of the ornate doors unopposed by any guards rushing to the council's defense. It galled him even more to see the lack of proper security. The Jaffa were supposed to be a race of warriors…they were becoming a race of sniveling, incompetent bureaucrats.

Teal'c walked out of the capitol building without incident and made it halfway to the stargate before an alarm sounded throughout the city. He glanced back, feeling a fresh rush of adrenaline spike through his veins. He was a rogue once again, and for some inexplicable reason it just felt…right.

He turned and jogged off behind cover, making his way towards the stargate as quickly as possible.

* * *

When he arrived near the gate he found it guarded by two sentries. No others were visible in the area, though there were a number of nearby buildings that could have been concealing their presence.

Teal'c walked casually into view towards the dialing device. "_Has anyone passed through the Chappa'ai within the last ten minutes?_"

"_No one_," the nearest sentry said, blocking Teal'c's access to the dialing device. "_I'm sorry, Master Teal'c. No one is permitted to leave until the 'all clear' sounds_."

Teal'c stopped his advance just in front of the guard and bowed. "_Very well_," he said, raising his head and his fist at the same time. He hit the man under the chin, then pulled the Jaffa's zatnikatel from his grip and shot the other sentry.

Teal'c elbowed the first Jaffa in the head, knocking him a few feet distant, then shot him as well. He quickly dialed the gate, took one last look around for pursuers, then walked into the portal…feeling truly alive for the first time in years.


	4. Chapter 4

"Unscheduled activation!" Walter said from the SGC control room as he palmed the hand scanner and closed the iris.

"What have we got?" Landry asked, arriving a few moments later.

"Looks like it's the Alpha Site, sir. We have an incoming text transmission."

Landry stepped forward and read the brief message. "Let him through…and get SG-1 down here."

"Yes, sir," Walter said, opening the iris and sending an 'all clear' radio transmission back through the gate.

By the time the General had made it to the bottom of the ramp Teal'c had already stepped through, dressed in several layers of gray-colored robes.

"Thank you for receiving me, General Landry," Teal'c said, bowing his head in a small gesture of respect.

"You're always welcome here, Teal'c. Why didn't you use the GDO we gave to the Jaffa Nation? Colonel Davidson mentioned something about 'internal fighting' in his message."

"Indeed. The device of which you speak is no longer within my reach. The infighting is something better left discussed in private."

Landry nodded. "Briefing room. SG-1 is already on their way."

* * *

"You did what?" Mitchell asked, half laughing. "God, I wish I could have been there."

"Colonel," Landry lightly reprimanded him for his tone from across the briefing room table. "I take it this was a long time in coming?"

"It was," Teal'c said, almost regretfully. "The Jaffa Nation has been on the path to self destruction for some time now. I foolishly thought that I could convince them of the necessity for unity amongst all Jaffa. I realize now that I underestimated their greed and arrogance."

"What does Bra'tac have to say about all this?" Vala asked.

Teal'c looked at her dismissively, but when he noticed the expressions of the others he frowned. "You have not heard?"

"Heard what?" Vala asked, a bit more interested.

"Bra'tac has left the Jaffa Nation and declared himself the first of the new System Lords."

Mitchell's and Landry's jaws fell open in perfect symmetry. "He did what?" Landry finally asked, aghast.

"Every day that passes," Teal'c continued, "more Jaffa join his army on Dakara. This is the internal division of which I spoke earlier. I had sought to rally the Jaffa Nation to counter his actions through a war of ideology…but the council would have nothing of it. They seek to trade with Bra'tac for access to the Ancient technologies that he now possesses."

"Whoa, whoa, wait a minute big fella," Mitchell interrupted. "Where did Bra'tac get his hands on Ancient tech?"

"From Earth," Teal'c said with emphasis. "Captain Stevenson transformed Bra'tac into an Ancient and gave him access to their technology for the sole purpose of raising an army of Jaffa to serve them."

"Good for him," Vala said, noticed the looks of horror from the others. "Well it's not like the whole democracy thing was really working out for the Jaffa anyway…not to mention the troubles you have with it here on Earth."

"Are you out of your mind?" Mitchell asked/scolded her.

"Look," Vala countered, "you've got to remember that the galaxy is a big place and not everyone is going to want to pattern themselves after your civilization…and to think that they would is, I have to say, a wee bit on the side of arrogance," she said cautiously.

"Point taken," Landry agreed. "But I hardly think reestablishing the tyranny of the System Lords is a viable alternative."

"The voice of wisdom," Mitchell commented, glaring at Vala. "Teal'c, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Bra'tac one of the strongest advocates of establishing a democratic government?"

"He was," Teal'c admitted, "but no longer. He told me as much himself."

"Is it possible," Mitchell wondered aloud, "that Stevenson changed him…other than the obvious part about him becoming an Ancient…by the way, how is that even possible?"

"Maybe the same way Stevenson was transformed," Haley speculated.

"No," Landry said, shaking his head. "That site has been under close guard since Stevenson's 'incident.' He couldn't have used it without our knowing."

"Is it the only one in the galaxy?" she asked.

Landry considered that. "She may have a point."

"I do not believe Bra'tac has been adversely affected," Teal'c interrupted. "The physical changes he underwent occurred over a long period of time, during which we met on several occasions. I believe his mind to be his own…which makes his recent actions even more confusing."

"Physical changes?" Vala asked.

"He has become stronger and faster than any Jaffa, myself included. And though he did not reveal it to me, I believe he may also possess telekinetic abilities."

Everyone was silent for a moment. They hadn't quite gotten past the shock of his previous revelations.

"What makes you say that?" Haley asked.

"Because Stevenson _did_ demonstrate his telekinetic abilities…and I believe Bra'tac possesses the same powers."

Landry's eyes widened. "You've seen Stevenson?"

"Yes, several months ago," Teal'c said as if it was of no consequence. "It was the day that Bra'tac revealed his plans to me. I have not spoken with either of them since."

"Well doesn't that beat all," Landry said, perturbed. "Stevenson can travel back and forth between galaxies at will."

"How do you know this?" Teal'c asked.

"Because he was last seen in Atlantis," the General said. "And up until recently, Earth has been the only means of reaching the Pegasus galaxy via stargate. So either he knows something about the gate network that we don't…or he's found himself a fast ship."

"He does possess an Ancient warship," Teal'c said.

"An Ancient warship?!" Mitchell asked, even further stunned. "Damn it, Ryan's been a busy boy."

"You've seen it?" Landry asked.

Teal'c nodded. "It appeared over the skies of Dakara when he announced the new covenant between the Ancients and the Jaffa."

"New covenant?" Vala asked, her eyes glittering. "That's interesting."

"How so?" Landry asked.

"Well it's just a guess, but it sounds as if they're using the mythology established by the Goa'uld in order to facilitate a quick and easy transition of leadership," Vala explained, looking at Teal'c. "Are they making unsubstantiated promises, or are they offering something of value in return?"

Teal'c stiffened. "Bra'tac has given a few Jaffa loyal to him a new symbiot, with the promise of more to anyone who earns them."

"Really," Vala said, her eyes now beaming. "And this new symbiot, is it the same as the old or different somehow?"

"It is claimed to be artificial in nature, and never to need replacing."

"Bingo," she said excitedly.

"What's your point?" Mitchell asked.

"They know the Jaffa aren't interested in any more false gods…so they're giving them real ones. The Ancients. And they're not holding out on them either."

"Meaning what?" Landry asked, wondering if she had some valuable insight or if she was just rambling again.

"They're the real deal," she said, letting that thought hang in the air for a moment. "They're not faking…not pulling a con. If they were, then they'd leave promises to be completed in the future or keep some aspect of what they're doing vague. But if they're doing everything above board, then this isn't some massive con or a feeble grasp for power. This Stevenson is the real deal."

"You're saying he's not pretending to be an Ancient," Haley commented. "He really is one?"

Vala nodded. "And remember, in their time they were the masters of this galaxy and who knows how many more," she said, turning to Landry. "I wouldn't write him off as a would-be tyrant just yet, General. He may turn out to be a very good influence on this galaxy."

"Unless he is giving us what we want now," Teal'c countered, "only to show his true nature long into the future. I have seen such deception at the hands of the Goa'uld before. Do not assume his true intentions to be honorable."

"Why do you automatically assume his intentions to be dishonorable, Teal'c?" Vala asked. "Why can't you consider the possibility that this guy might be on the up and up?"

Teal'c leaned forward over the table. "I would expect one with your…experience…to be wary of such enticements."

"I am," Vala countered. "And if he's planning some type of con, I'll probably be the first to spot it. But from what little you've told me, he doesn't fit the profile. I am a con artist, I know," she said, glancing around the table. "Retired…of course."

"Regardless," Landry interrupted, "the I.O.A. is not going to like this. They already have a bone to pick with Stevenson, and I don't think they're going to care about any possible 'good intentions,' if that really is the case, of which I'm not convinced either way."

Landry turned to Teal'c, who was seated on his left. "With you opposing Bra'tac, and you recent fallout with the Jaffa Nation...what are your current plans?"

Teal'c didn't answer immediately. "I have recently become aware of the fact that I am not the Jaffa I once was. Dealing with the corruption on the council and getting nowhere has left me without a sense of direction. The Jaffa Nation is dying, it cannot be saved. Bra'tac has set the Jaffa loyal to him on a path of renewed servitude…which I cannot now or ever support. I have lost my place in the galaxy, and have some much needed soul searching to do."

"Any idea of where you'll be doing that?" Mitchell asked, his words suggesting his intent.

"Indeed," Teal'c agreed. "With your blessing, General Landry, I would request to rejoin the Tau'ri. I found my purpose here once…perhaps so again."

Mitchell swung his gaze around to meet Landry's. "SG-1 currently has an open slot, sir."

"Which you have been dragging your feet to fill," Landry reminded him. "Though I suppose even if Dr. Jackson shows back up it won't be the first time SG-1 has had five members."

Landry paused a moment. "I'll have to clear it through the I.O.A…but no one is going to say no to Teal'c. Jack will make sure of that," he said, standing and extending his hand. "It's good to have you back, son."

Teal'c took his hand. "Thank you, General Landry. I will endeavor to make myself useful once again."

"I'm sure you will," Landry said, releasing his hand.

"To that end," Teal'c said, pulling out a small crystal. "These are the most recent reports on Dakara."

Landry took the crystal from him. "I'm sure they'll make an interesting read for the I.O.A. Colonel Mitchell, find the newest member of SG-1 some quarters," he said, leaving them to get reunited.

"Yes, sir," Mitchell said sharply before walking around the table and clapping Teal'c on the shoulder. "I knew you'd be back."


	5. Chapter 5

Carter read the message from the _Daedalus_ that contained Atlantis's address and spatial coordinates, nodding her head as she did so. She turned around and walked over to the vertical coordinate board and started to work out an applicable rendezvous point for the three ships in her task force.

"Send the following coordinates to the _Daedalus_ and _Apollo_…" she said to the Major flanking her control chair, "tell them to meet us there with all due speed. We'll travel the rest of the way to Atlantis together."

* * *

The _Odyssey_ arrived at the deep space rendezvous point first, given that they were the fastest ship of the three, and waited patiently for their sister ships to arrive…giving Carter an ample amount of time to mentally go over her attack plans.

'Attack plans' didn't seem an appropriate phrase…'retrieval approach' perhaps? No, that didn't sound right either. The closer this operation came to completion the more Carter started to worry. This entire 'reclamation project' was based on the basic assumption that former Earth personnel wouldn't shoot at their own…or at least not kill their own. She knew full well that with three ZPMs Atlantis had enough weaponry to annihilate the _Odyssey_ with a single shot, but she didn't think Sheppard would do that, especially with her in command…which was why she'd added her command signature to the ship's IFF.

What had her worried was Stevenson. She didn't know the guy as others had in the SGC, and despite that former association there was no way to know what changes the Ancient Repository had made to his mind. Would he shoot to kill if he was in command? Was he in command? There were too many unknowns, yet Carter knew this approach was their best bet to retake the city, barring some sort of theatrical 007 infiltration scheme.

She estimated that it would take between seven and twelve seconds for the shield disruption weapons to sufficiently alter the city's defensive energy matrix with all three ships firing simultaneously. That time window increased considerably if less weapons were brought into play, which meant that they'd probably only get one chance at this before Atlantis decided to disable one or more of their ships.

Carter didn't doubt that Atlantis would assess the situation before acting…that didn't really bother her. They should be able to get at least their first two or three teams inside the city before they realized what was happening to them and could mount a response.

But of course, Atlantis would see them coming with their long range sensors, so they'd probably have something planned for when they arrived…and that was what was bugging Carter to no end. Would they just wait for them to come…or would they have something special planned?

* * *

"I assume we're ready to depart?" Woolsey asked as he walked onto _Odyssey_'s bridge.

Carter nodded. "I thought you'd like to oversee the last part of this from the bridge."

"Not going to throw me out an airlock for looking over your shoulder?" he jokingly asked.

"Not as long as you keep your mouth shut," Carter said sarcastically. She cringed when the words processed through her mind. "Sorry, that came out wrong."

"I get your meaning," Woolsey said, shaking off her concern. "How far away are we?"

"About ten minutes in hyperspace," Carter said, glad to change subjects. "We'll drop out in low orbit, then circle the planet until we locate the city. That way we give them less time to react."

"Sounds reasonable," Woolsey said, nodding once. "I assume the assault teams are waiting near the ring room?"

"They've been on station the last half hour. It should only take forty seconds for _Odyssey_'s teams to ring into the city, and the same for _Apollo_'s…_Daedalus_'s will take longer, because they're carrying the bulk of the boarding parties."

"And you're sure that the new weapons will work," Woolsey asked speculatively. "It would be one hell of a waste if we came all this way and spent all this time for nothing."

Carter nodded, smiling patronizingly. "I can assure you they've been thoroughly tested. Even McKay signed off on them…and you know how skeptical he's been."

"True enough," Woolsey said with a cautiously tone. "But correct me if I'm wrong, aren't Atlantis's shields one of a kind? I mean, aren't they of a different construction than the Asgard design that our ships' shields are based off of?"

"Yes," Carter said, starting to get a little annoyed. "But the Asgard have a copy of the shield dynamics that Atlantis and all Ancient tech employs. I shouldn't have to remind you that the Pegasus Asgard were able to fly their ship _through_ Atlantis's shields when they infiltrated the city."

"Which begs the question," Woolsey countered, "why haven't we taken that approach?"

Carter cringed a little and leaned in closer to Woolsey. "We're not that smart," she whispered loud enough so only he could hear.

"I see," he said without much confidence.

"Relax, Richard," Carter said informally, "I'm not worried about the technology aspect of this mission."

"What are you worried about?" he asked, catching her unintentional implication.

"What they're going to do in response," she said honestly.

"Well," Woolsey said dismissively, "at least we have our own Asgard designed shields to hide behind once the shooting starts. I wouldn't feel comfortable going up against Atlantis with only our own tech, but as you've said, the little gray guys knew what they were doing."

"Right," Carter said, avoiding correcting him on how screwed they were if the 'shooting' did actually start. "Open a comm channel to both ships," she ordered.

"Channel open," Major Kelson said.

"This is the _Odyssey_," she began. "I want a go/no-go on your weapons' status and boarding parties."

"Go for weapons," Caldwell's voice answered back. "Go for retrieval teams."

"Go, go, General. _Apollo_ is ready."

"We're go as well," Carter replied. "Ready to enter hyperspace in thirty seconds. _Apollo_ first, _Daedalus_ second, _Odyssey_ will bring up the rear. Keep the timing close. I want to arrive together. _Odyssey_ out."

"Major?" Carter asked.

"Ready for hyperspace," he answered.

Carter looked out the forward viewport as the _Apollo_ swung around on its exit vector. "Here we go," she whispered to herself.

With a flash of pseudomotion the _Apollo_ disappeared from view, followed quickly by the _Daedalus_. Carter barely had time to blink before the Major launched them into hyperspace on their heels. On the Major's display screen a countdown clock activated at 9:37 and began to count down.

* * *

The three ships dropped out of hyperspace within three seconds of each other into orbit over a very green world with only scattered patches of blue. Carter squinted against the sun on the horizon as it suddenly broke past the planet as the _Odyssey_ roared into an elliptical orbit for maximum speed.

"Report," she ordered.

"No signs of Atlantis," the Captain on the other flanking control station noted. "It'll take us several minutes until we completely scan the planet."

"Let me know the moment you see anything," Carter said, her adrenaline pumping. "Are the other ships still with us?"

"They're lagging a bit, but they've accelerated to match our orbit."

"General," Captain Norris said oddly. "We're detecting a stargate on the planet's surface."

"What?" Carter asked, standing up and looking over the Captain's shoulder.

"Along with a few thousand inhabitants," Norris continued.

"Why would they have two gates on the same planet?" Woolsey asked.

"Damn it," Carter swore. "I should have expected this."

"What is it?" Woolsey asked worriedly.

"Sheppard probably used an intermediary world for transit," she explained, thoroughly ticked with herself. "Double gating to hide Atlantis's address from the locals."

"So Atlantis isn't here?" Woolsey asked.

"We'll have to complete the orbit to be sure," Carter said, retaking her seat, "but I doubt it."

"So what now?"

Carter chewed on her lip. "I suppose we can examine the DHD, pull a list of addresses. One of them should be Atlantis's. I don't see any reason for Sheppard to triple gate."

"So this isn't completely a dead end?" Woolsey asked monotone.

"Let's hope not," Carter said, embarrassed.

"General," Norris said into the silence, "I'm detecting a locator beacon."

Carter frowned. "What kind of beacon?"

"It's consistent with the subdermal locators used by Atlantis personnel," she said.

"Just one?" Woolsey interrupted.

Norris nodded.

"Guess we're not coming up empty handed after all," Woolsey noted.

"I guess not," Carter said, suddenly a bit queasy. She wondered who it was on the planet below…and what would happen to them when they got back to Earth.

Carter shook away the thought. High time to be worrying about that sort of thing now.

Woolsey glanced around the bridge. "If I'm right in assuming that you're going to beam them onto the bridge, might I suggest you get a couple of SFs up here?"

"Major," Carter said with a nod. Kelson relayed the request to the lower decks as the bridge crew waited for two muscular Sergeants to come jogging onto the bridge.

"Now," Carter said.

In front of them a blue/white glow obscured the forward viewport for an instant then disappeared…revealing a blue camo-clad Sheppard.

"What the…" he muttered, trying to get his bearings. He glanced around the bridge confused, then it dawned on him just where he was.

"Oh, crap."


	6. Ch 1

"I can't believe how well organized they are," Ford said.

"I know," Sheppard said in full agreement. "Ronon's got Green Team up to U.S. Army efficiency."

"Not that that's saying much," Ford joked.

"I don't know. Even a platoon of boot camp-fresh ground pounders would make mince meat out of Blue Team."

"Now that's really not saying very much," Ford said, extending his joke to Sheppard's men.

"Well feel free to offer up any suggestions."

"I already have," Ford argued. "You rejected them."

"They were extreme…to the point of self injury," Sheppard complained. "These are common folk that we're trying to train into soldiers. You gotta allow for a bigger learning curve here compared to Earth."

"Ronon doesn't seem to have a problem pressing his men."

"Ronon is sadistic," Sheppard argued.

"My point exactly."

Sheppard stopped walking and faced Aiden. "Alright, how about this. You can play antagonist and I'll play protagonist."

"Meaning I'm the drill sergeant," Ford asked. "and you're the CO?"

"Something like that," Sheppard agreed.

Ford nodded. "That could work, but we're going to have to set this up properly."

"What do you mean?"

"I'll have to give them challenges to face…and you'll have to be the one to teach them how to get through it."

"I think I see where you're going with this," Sheppard said as they started to continue walking back to the command post from the stargate. They'd just arrived to take their command shift opposite Brand and Ronon, who were both currently back in Atlantis. Striker had been in temporary command the past few days, but Sheppard didn't feel completely comfortable with him taking the reigns of a full training cycle just yet.

"You think my concern for my men is affecting my ability to rough them up?"

"Exactly."

"So, you want to be their worst nightmare so I don't have to?"

Ford smiled. "Yep."

"Hmm," Sheppard considered. "I wonder how Ronon manages to do both?"

"I hate to say it, but I think his Setidan training was better than ours."

Sheppard smiled. "I've been thinking about that since the day we started training the regulars. Kind of a tough pill to swallow…but it does give us the opportunity to learn a few things."

"Man, I wish I could have seen them when they fought the Wraith," Ford said, thinking out loud. "A whole planet full of Ronons…that'd be nuts."

"They're not all like him," Sheppard said, remembering the other Setidans they'd come across. "But they are a tough lot. I…" he said before disappearing in a blinding light.

"What the hell?" Ford said, glancing right and left out of reflex. He looked up in the sky and listened…but there were no darts. Besides, the light hadn't been quite the same, but either way Sheppard had been transported somewhere.

Ford took off at a run back to the stargate. With his enzyme enhanced muscles he made it back within three minutes, hurriedly dialed Atlantis, sent his security code, then ran through the portal to get help.

* * *

"Hi, John," Carter said kindly, almost an apology, along with a short wave.

"Hi, Sam," Sheppard said naturally, his shock gone. He should have expected this. O'Neill had warned them that they were coming, but how in the world did they find Yavin? "I'm kind of in the middle of something right now, so would you mind beaming me back down? We can talk later, say an hour or so?" he said sarcastically.

"I'm afraid that's not going to happen," Woolsey said, stepping into the conversation. Carter shot him a short glance, but the I.O.A. representative didn't see it.

"Woolsey," Sheppard said, his voice full of venom. "I should have known you'd be a part of this," he said, looking back at Carter. "But I didn't figure you for a turncoat."

"That's not fair, John," she mildly protested despite the fact that she'd expected as much. "I'm just following orders. You put yourself in this position, not me."

"Gee, thanks," Sheppard said irreverently. "That'll make those long nights in prison all the more bearable now, won't it?"

"You stole from the Air Force," Carter argued. "What did you expect to happen?"

"What I did," he corrected her, "was use the material available to me to aid our allies in the war against the Wraith, as we've done ever since we first set foot in Atlantis and allied ourselves with the Athosians. I didn't change anything. The I.O.A. is the one that did the changing."

"Perhaps so," Woolsey said, "but your actions were still in violation of I.O.A. mandate, not to mention U.S. military regs. You would have received a fair trial…if you hadn't broken security and fled Stargate Command."

"I did the right thing," Sheppard emphasized, "and I was being punished for it. End of story. You can wrap it up in whatever propaganda you like, but that doesn't change the truth. You were going to abandon every single Human in the Pegasus galaxy to the mercy of the Wraith…and we all know where that leads back to. And don't even try to deny it," Sheppard said, pointing an accusing finger at Woolsey.

"I don't deny anything," the man said, unshaken. "Our priority lies with Earth, not the Pegasus galaxy. Your actions, along with those of Dr. Weir, drew us into a war not of our own making. That in no way makes us liable for the outcome of that war or the fate of the Pegasus galaxy. Given that we did destroy several Wraith Hive ships during our few years here, the Pegasus natives should be thankful for our assistance rather than expect us to bail them out of their perpetual troubles."

"Their 'troubles'?" Sheppard said, incredulously. "You make it sound like it's their fault?"

"Well it's certainly not ours," Woolsey continued. "We have enough problems of our own to deal with. We can't logistically or ideologically commit ourselves to the task of defeating the Wraith, and to be frank, we never should have entertained those thoughts."

"But we can commit ourselves to ransacking every bit of advanced technology that we come across, despite the negative affects it will have on others, all in the name of good old Earth?"

"I wouldn't put it that way, but if you must, then…yes," Woolsey said without any trace of guilt.

"Why you…" Sheppard muttered, taking three quick steps up to the man and punched him in the face.

Woolsey fell to the ground, his nose gushing blood as the SF's ran up to restrain Sheppard.

"Enough!" Carter yelled. Reluctantly Sheppard stopped struggling against the superior muscle. "Lieutenant Vitterman, help Mr. Woolsey to the infirmary. And you," she said, turning her ire on Sheppard.

"And me what?" he countered. "I'm on my way to a holding cell, followed by a rigged trial and a damp, dark cell somewhere on Earth for the rest of my life. You really expect me to walk into that willingly?"

Carter glared at him, but didn't say a word. "Holding cell," she ordered.

The SF's began to drag him off the bridge. "Nice to see you too, Sam."

When Sheppard was out of sight she slumped down in her command chair, cradling her head in her hand.

"General?" Major Kelson said.

"Yes," she said, not looking up.

"We have a message from the _Daedalus_. Dr. McKay is requesting permission to ring over."

"Perfect," Carter muttered in disgust. She thought about denying him permission, but then again this confrontation was going to happen one way or another. She might as well let him find out about Sheppard now and get it over with. "Permission granted," she said, getting up from her chair. "Put us into a stable orbit and have the other ships do likewise. I'm going to meet McKay. You have the bridge, Major."


	7. Ch 2

Ford burst into the gate room at a run and continued forward up the stairs. "Sheppard's been taken!" he yelled into the empty room.

Devonshire poked her head up into view above the second tier railing. "What?"

"I said Sheppard's been taken," Ford repeated. "On Yavin. We were walking side by side, then there was a flash of light, and he was gone."

Devonshire frowned. "You mean he was beamed up?"

Ford shook his head. "It wasn't a dart."

Devonshire looked at him as if he was stupid. "I meant an Asgard beam."

Ford frowned. "Why would the Asgard take him?"

"I didn't…what is wrong with you? The transport beams that we use on our ships, like, you know, the _Daedalus_ or the _Odyssey_."

"_Daedalus_?" Ford said, remembering. "You mean the tech the Asgard gave Earth."

"Yes," Devonshire over emphasized. "Did it look like that?"

"I've never seen it," Ford told her.

"Oh," she said apologetically. "I guess you wouldn't have. It's sort of like a bright white light that zips up and down, depending on which way you're going."

"It was a white light," Ford confirmed.

Devonshire chewed on her lip as she thought. "Stevenson said he didn't want to be disturbed unless it was an emergency, but I guess this qualifies," she said, walking over to a communications panel. She pulled up a schematic of the city and zoomed in on Stevenson's quarters. She keyed the sound for his location only.

"Control room to Stevenson. We have a situation."

There was a long pause, longer than Devonshire was comfortable with and she began to worry about having interrupted him, but eventually his calm voice responded.

"What is it?"

"Sir, Ford has just returned from Yavin. He claims Sheppard disappeared in a flash of light. We think it might have been…"

"Keep him there," Stevenson said quickly. "I'll be right up."

"Okay…" Devonshire said to herself as the comm channel cut off from Stevenson's end. "I guess that was worth waking him up for."

"Claims?" Ford repeated.

Devonshire stared him down. "If you don't know for sure what it was, then 'claims' is the appropriate term."

"You make it sound like I don't know what I'm talking about."

"I didn't mean it that way."

Ford seemed to let it go. "He was sleeping in the middle of the day?"

She shrugged. "Beats me. I'd be taking a nap right now if I wasn't on duty."

"A nap?" Ford said incredulously. "Don't you have anything better to do?"

She smiled humorlessly. "Right now, Atlantis is a pretty dull place."

"The city has over a hundred gyms," Ford countered.

"I do my workouts in the morning," she told him. "In the afternoon I'm bored to tears."

"Flight training then," Ford countered as he tried to keep his nerves in check. He didn't just like waiting around while Sheppard was who knows where. "There are plenty of simulations to get you started."

"Hmmn, I hadn't thought about that. Is training all you do for fun?"

"Nowadays, pretty much," Ford admitted. "All the 'fun' stuff I did before seems pretty pathetic now."

"Such as?" Devonshire pressed.

"Well, there was this one time…" he began as Stevenson raced into the control room.

"That was fast," Devonshire said as Stevenson brushed past her and went straight for the long range sensors. He recalibrated them in a flash and generated a grainy picture of three contacts over Yavin. It took a moment for the computer to process their likely shapes and origins, but Stevenson already knew who they were.

"Find Ronon," he told Aiden. "I'm going to need the two of you geared up in less than an hour."

"What is it?" Ford asked him pointedly.

"A taskforce from Avalon. We knew they were coming, but I'd been expecting to find them before they found us. Somehow they stumbled across Yavin…unless they backtracked the regulars."

"Where's Avalon?" Ford asked. "And how would they know to track Sheppard's men?"

"Earth," Stevenson said, using the human name for their homeworld. "And I bet they put feelers out into the local populations to try and find where we went. From there that eventually led them back to Yavin."

"So why take him and not me?" Ford asked. "We were side by side."

Stevenson frowned. "I don't know." He turned to Devonshire. "Tell Larrin we're going to need the _Tria_," he said before running off into the city.

* * *

Stevenson arrived in the outpost on the forest world that Teyla had entirely to herself barely twenty minutes after he'd received the news about Sheppard. He quickly searched for Teyla within the _terra_, but found her mind somewhat distant.

_Teyla_, he said telepathically, but there was no reply. Either she didn't have the skills to reply or her transformation hadn't progressed that far yet.

Stevenson got a more precise mental location fix and ran out to her location. He had to pass through over a kilometer of forest before emerging onto the beach that ringed the island that the terra was located on. Teyla was on the water's edge, moving to and fro in an elaborate dance-like flow of positions that Stevenson recognized as an Alterran flexibility regimen.

He smiled as he approached her, pleased with the skill of movement that she was displaying…and her lack of clothes. His maleness aside, he took it as a sign of progress that she was abandoning human taboos and recognizing her body for what it really was.

_Teyla_, he said 'louder' this time, trying to establish a telepathic link.

Right on cue she jerked to sudden awareness, then looked visibly relieved when she saw him approaching and quickly began to walk forward to meet him.

"_Did you say that out loud…or in my mind?_" she asked, speaking Lingara, or as the humans called it, 'Ancient.'

"_Mind…I see you've progressed to at least level three_," he said, referring to the neural uploads that he'd left in the terra along with a myriad of other developmental training designed to bring her up to Alterran norms.

Teyla smiled. "_Comprehensive level four_," she informed him, "_but I've reached level 17 in the self defense subsection._"

Stevenson nodded curtly. "_Good. You're going to need it. I apologize for interrupting your training…I know your transformation isn't complete yet, but I need your help._"

Teyla's eyes narrowed. "_What's wrong?_" she asked, picking up on his tension either from past experience or a sliver of her developing empathic ability.

"_Sheppard's been captured_," he said, wasting no time.

Teyla set her jaw, then glanced down at her nude body. "_I can leave as soon as I get dressed_," she said, starting to walk off the beach back toward the terra.

Stevenson grabbed her arm, stopping her. "_First things first_," he said, sliding a large, intricate gauntlet onto her forearm. He slid a second identical one on her opposite arm, then held up his own for comparison.

"_What are these for?_" Teyla asked.

"_Combat_," Stevenson said simply. "_They respond to mental commands. Observe_."

Teyla watched as both pieces of Stevenson's forearm jewelry melted from their silvery forms and spread out over his body, expanding in size far more than volume would have allowed. Within twenty seconds he was covered head to toe in dark grey body armor that looked to be little more than a thin layer of liquid.

His head covering retracted, exposing his face. "_The armor is made up of nanites. They are rigid, despite their fluid appearance, but they move in conjunction with your neural impulses. They offer no resistance to movement, rather they anticipate your actions and move along with your body. Otherwise they are rock solid and can easily protect you from blades and a moderate amount of kinetic energy. They will also absorb the energy from most stun weapons._"

"_Amazing_," Teyla said, glancing down at her own jewelry. Her mind focused and her own armor slithered coolly over her body, clothing her in nanite armor, only hers was golden brown in color. Belatedly she realized it was the same color as the sand she was standing on.

"_Yes, it will match the color of your environment if you wish_," Stevenson explained quickly. "_It also possesses a decent personal shield and wrist-mounted weapons,_" he said, referencing the small bumps covering both of their wrists. "_One setting is for stun, which is all I want you to use. Try it now_," he said, firing a small blue orb into the sand.

Teyla concentrated again, lifting her left arm and pointing it toward a small rock near the water's edge. An equally small green orb lept from her wrist, missed the rock low by a few centimeters, and exploded the sand beneath…launching the rock high into the air where it then fell crashing into the lake.

Stevenson shook his head. "_That wasn't stun. Try again_."

Teyla looked around and found another small stone. She raised her forearm in its direction and thought only about putting the stone to sleep. With that thought in mind, she loosed the weapon's energy, launching the blue stun orb that crackled harmlessly across the stone's surface, quickly dissipating its energy into the rock and the sand beneath.

"_Good_," Stevenson said, walking off the beach. "_Practice as many functions as you can on our way back. You need to get familiar with the mental interface_."

"_Who took Sheppard?_" she asked, firing another stun blast into the sand.

"_Three ships from Avalon_," Stevenson said, retracting his own armor back into the elegant forearm jewelry that he almost always wore. "_They beamed him up from Yavin about half an hour ago._"

"_They came all this way to recapture him?_" Teyla asked.

"_They came here to reclaim Atlantis_," Stevenson said, telekinetically pushing a tree branch out of their way. "_O'Neill warned us they were coming, and I've been looking for them. It seems they found us first_."

Teyla retracted her armor, leaving her nude once again, then just as quickly redeployed it. "_What are you planning?_"

"_We're going to intercept and board their ships_," Stevenson told her as they continued to walk back through the forest, though their pace was gradually increasing into a slow run. "_I'll take one, Ronon and Ford will take the second, along with an escort of replicators…_"

"_Aiden Ford?_" Teyla asked, surprised.

Stevenson nodded. "_Long story. You can get reacquainted on the way. I need you to take the third ship. Incapacitate everyone onboard and confine them into holding areas_."

"_You mean drag them into holding areas_," Teyla corrected him as she stopped experimenting and accelerated into a full run.

Stevenson easily matched her speed. "_Yes. Don't leave anyone conscious, even if they surrender_."

"_I understand_," she said, remembering that these were his former people and that it was possible that he still had some friends among them.

"_We can afford to be generous when we have the advantage_," he said, reading her thoughts. "_If that wasn't the case, then we wouldn't hold back, no matter who they were_."

Teyla smiled. She should have known better than to assume a bias on his part.

Within a minute they had arrived back at the terra and Stevenson led Teyla over to the obelisk inside. She frowned.

With a simple mental command Stevenson activated the transportation device. In a flash they were standing in front of its opposite number directly opposite the stargate.

Teyla raised an eyebrow. "_And you made me walk_."

"_It's all about the journey_," Stevenson reminded her as they walked up to the gate. He didn't bother with the nearby DHD. He dialed the address mentally inside half a second and the event horizon snapped into place inside the stargate.

"_You're going to have to teach me that trick sometime_," Teyla said, keeping in step beside him.

"_It's all in the training program_," he told her as they walked through.

* * *

"Larrin?" he asked after they ringed over to the _Tria_, which was still docked in one of Atlantis's six slips.

The ship's captain responded by touching the small device attached to her ear. "They're aboard. Take us up," she said to her small bridge crew, all of whom were Travelers, as she led Stevenson and a fully clothed Teyla out of the ring room.

By the time they reached the bridge, the _Tria_ had already activated its anti-grav suspension matrix and released itself from the city's tractor beams that had been holding it aloft. It passed through the city's shield into the freezing atmosphere of Hoth, then rocketed up towards orbit on its primary engines.

When they reached the bridge, Larrin slid into the control chair, utilizing her recent gene enhancement to bring up a tie-in schematic from Atlantis's long range sensors.

"They've already entered hyperspace," Larrin reported.

"Move to intercept their line of flight," Stevenson ordered.

"That's going to be tricky," Larrin warned as Teyla walked over to Ronon and Ford smiling. "Our sensors don't reach that far in hyperspace."

"Anticipate their current course and get us near them. We can reacquire the trace then."

"Ok," Larrin said, unsure of their chances. "Entering hyperspace," she said as she mentally entered her best guess at an intercept point. The ship launched into flight on cue and the telemetry data from Atlantis vanished from above the control chair.

"Estimate two and a half hours to intercept," she said as she remained in the control chair to monitor their status…and to revel in the surge of power she felt whenever she sat in the chair. Larrin liked being in control.

* * *

The door to Sheppard's cell onboard the Odyssey opened with a groan and McKay slowly walked through. He glanced back over his shoulder with a none too happy glare at the guard then walked over to the table where Sheppard sat handcuffed to his chair.

A look of disgust crossed Sheppard's face. "You too?"

"Hardly," McKay mumbled as he sat down opposite of Sheppard. "I'm as much of a prisoner as you are," he said, glancing at his friend's handcuffs. "Well, maybe not quite that much, but I am here against my will."

"Oh really?" Sheppard said sarcastically. "Because it's beginning to look a lot like 'stab your friend in the back' day to me."

"You can blame Sam for that," McKay said with a mixture of dismay and disgust. "She's the one pushing this."

Sheppard's eyes narrowed. "Why?"

McKay crossed his arms over his chest. "You'd have to ask her that. O'Neill sent us out here to fail…somehow she didn't get the message."

"O'Neill did?"

"Orders from the President," McKay explained. "Then he twisted my arm to get me to come."

"How'd he do that?" Sheppard asked.

"It was a simple choice between this mission and retirement. I would have balked, but he said we'd abandon the idea if I could prove that it couldn't be done. Ahab up on the bridge has other ideas though."

Sheppard half laughed. "She really thinks she can take Atlantis?"

"Unfortunately yes," McKay said, frowning. "By the way, how did you know? Did she tell you?"

"I managed to put the pieces together," Sheppard said carefully. It seemed O'Neill was still on their side and he didn't want to get him into any trouble. "What are you guys planning to do anyway? The whole Wraith fleet couldn't get past the city's shield…do you really expect a 304 to have better luck?"

"Three, actually," McKay corrected him, "though it makes little difference. She plans to use a new weapon to disrupt Atlantis's shields enough to get a ring transmission through. They even brought along a small army for the occasion."

Sheppard sat back in his seat and laughed. "Whose brilliant idea was that?"

McKay coughed. "Mine, actually."

Sheppard glared at him. "Wait a minute…whose side are you on here?"

"O'Neill said if we could prove it couldn't be done we'd permanently abandon any ideas of retaking Atlantis. Disrupting the shield was our one and only chance, and I pointed it out like I was supposed to. Then Sam goes berserk and has spent the last year building specialized weapons for that very task."

"And I wonder who helped her do that?" Sheppard implied.

"Hey, if I thought there was even a small possibility of success I never would have suggested the idea, but with three ZPMs powering the city and a real Ancient at the controls there's no way in hell she's going to stand a chance. I thought she was intelligent enough to eventually figure that out and abandon the mission, but it seems her blondeness has gotten the best of her…either that or her ego."

"So you're saying you deliberately offered them a plan that you knew would fail?" Sheppard asked slowly.

"Of course," McKay said, slightly offended. "Did you really think I'd side with the I.O.A.?"

Sheppard raised his eyebrows. "I saw Woolsey on the bridge. I thought you said this mission came from the President?"

"Did a bit more than saw from what I hear…anyway, there's not much difference between the two anymore. The recent 'historic' election has left us with either a 'dupe-in-chief' or a 'conspirator-in-chief.' Either way the I.O.A. is pretty much running the show these days. They're the ones that really want Atlantis back. O'Neill argued to just let it go. Oh, by the way, they seem to want Stevenson just as much, if not more than they want the city."

"Fat chance of that," Sheppard mumbled as the cell door opened and Carter burst in.

"You sandbagger!" she verbally slung at McKay. "You've been holding out on us the entire time?"

"What? You were listening?"

"It's my job, McKay," she said with steel in her voice. "Yours was to help me devise a way to retake the city."

"I told you it wouldn't work, what more do you want?" McKay yelled.

"I guess a genuine effort is out of the question," she said sarcastically before turning to Sheppard. "I need Atlantis's address."

The former Colonel pulled against his cuffs. "Why in the world would I tell you that?"

Sam raised her chin. "In exchange for your freedom."

"What?" Sheppard and McKay said in tandem.

"You heard me. Tell me where Atlantis is and after we retake the city I'll arrange for you to 'accidentally' escape. Earth won't mount a retrieval mission for one man hiding in the Pegasus galaxy, especially since I have orders to bring Atlantis back to the Milky Way."

"Why weren't they going to do that the first time?" Sheppard asked irreverently.

"The two new ZPMs changed their mind," Sam told him. "They don't want to have anything to do with this galaxy or the Wraith. Once we're gone you'll be free and clear."

"To do what," Sheppard argued, "become Wraith food?"

"Would you prefer a prison cell for the rest of your life?" Sam countered.

"I don't believe this," McKay interrupted. "We're all on the same side here."

"We were," Sam said quietly. "But as we all know, not all stories have happy endings."

Sheppard glared at her. "Since when are you against doing the right thing?"

Sam shook her head. "It's not that simple anymore."

"It never was," Sheppard countered. "That never stopped you and SG-1 from defying orders. Don't forget, I read your mission reports."

"What we did, we did to safeguard Earth."

"What I did was to safeguard Pegasus."

"Sadly, that's not good enough," Sam said with genuine emotion. "Pegasus isn't our home, so not all people care for it as much as we do."

"We?" McKay objected. "You still count yourself in that group?"

"I've done all I can to help Pegasus," Sam angrily told him. "It wasn't enough. If I could disobey orders just one more time and those actions would save the people of Pegasus from the Wraith once and for all I'd do it in a heartbeat. You know that. But really, what can I do from the position I'm in?"

"You can turn us around and go home," McKay scolded her. "O'Neill said a year, and we're long past that."

"Earth needs Atlantis," Sam argued. "And the SGC needs to be the one to bring it back. If we do, we'll have more pull within the bureaucracy. Nowadays, with the Goa'uld defeated and the Wraith a galaxy away, the power of influence is our best weapon to right the wrongs of the I.O.A. But if I go rogue like Sheppard, I lose any chance of doing that. Earth will continue to go downhill until it becomes an enemy equivalent to that of the Goa'uld."

"Believe me," she continued, "I know what evil lurks within the I.O.A. I will not stand by and let it take over my home planet. And the only way I can fight it is from the inside. And to do that, I…we need Atlantis back."

"Is that the best excuse you came up with?" McKay mocked her. "You're never going to make a difference from the inside unless you're at the top of the food chain. Take it from a civilian who's been stomped on at the bottom of that hierarchy for years. The high ups in command do _not_ take orders from those below them."

"Well perhaps this blonde has come up with a few ideas that the great Rodney McKay hasn't," Sam said sarcastically. "And, by the way, I'm not a civilian. I'm a General now."

"Temporarily," McKay reminded her.

"Even temporarily it gives me some additional pull," she said, turning back to Sheppard. "For instance, the ability to arrange for your escape."

"What about the others on Atlantis?" Sheppard asked calmly. "You going to let them go too?"

Sam swallowed. "That'll be harder. But as long as I get the city back, I can probably swing it."

"Including Stevenson?" Sheppard asked pointedly.

"No," McKay answered for her. "The I.O.A. wants their guinea pig back."

Sam turned on him with the harshest glare she had.

"Oh, you didn't think I knew about that," McKay said, holding up amicably under that stare. "It's a small ship and word gets around. Especially when you hold your fireside chats with Woolsey in public places."

Sam ignored him. "I can't promise anything for Stevenson."

"All he did," Sheppard reminded her, "was stick his head in the Repository."

"Against standing orders," she countered.

"So demote him," he argued. "That doesn't warrant life in prison."

"I know," Sam agreed. "But it's not up to me."

Sheppard turned his head in disgust, then dropped his eyes to the floor. "Va, Jo, Fin, Sa, Ta, Ra."

"What?" Sam asked.

"That's the address for the planet Atlantis is currently on."

Sam cringed. "That doesn't really help me unless you can write it down."

McKay looked at him, wondering if he'd lost his mind too.

"What, you guys don't know how addresses work?" Sheppard said, greedily mocking them. "I'm not even a scientist and I know."

"Stevenson taught you that?" McKay asked evenly. His world was turning inside out.

"That and other things," Sheppard said. "Uncuff me and I'll write down the address for you neanderthals."

Sam nodded and walked back to the door, motioning to the guard outside who had the handcuff keys. When her back was turned, Sheppard looked at McKay and gave him a quick wink.

Inside McKay nearly jumped for joy, but he managed to keep his elation in check. He knew Sheppard wouldn't blithely give up Atlantis's location, not even to save himself. Sam should have known that too, but apparently she'd gone too far to the darkside to be able to see past the politics and self interest that was the lifeblood of the I.O.A.

"Could you hurry it up?" McKay annoying said just to add to the subterfuge. Sheppard had a plan, and Rodney needed to be ready to help him when the time came. Screw the I.O.A. and screw Earth. He'd had enough…and while he might be a whiny, insecure, self absorbed scientist he was still a man and there were some lines that he just would not cross…and betraying a friend was one of them.

As the guard unhandcuffed Sheppard and he followed the threesome out of the cell he realized that whatever was about to go down would probably kill his engagement with Jennifer…if their 15 months apart hadn't already done so.

No…if he went along with this insanity any longer then he didn't deserve her anyway. He'd find some way to get a message back to her. Right now, he concluded, a man has got to do what a man has got to do, and to hell with the consequences.

He'd find some way out of this mess later…and with a clear conscience. He was, after all, a genius.


	8. Ch 3

Sam sat in the _Odyssey_'s command chair as her taskforce moved through hyperspace toward the address John had provided. Woolsey was still indisposed and Sheppard was back in his cell, with McKay keeping him company. Aside from a few bridge staff quietly going about their work she had a moment alone with her thoughts as she stared out at the blue/white hue of hyperspace.

Something was nagging her about Sheppard. She'd expected him to take her offer after a bit of indecision, quickly followed by the realization that a lifetime in prison was his only other viable option…but something about it just didn't feel right.

Maybe she had been expecting him to hold out longer, make her sweat for a while. He'd made the only logical choice, and she knew he was a lot smarter than he usually let on, but still…

She half wondered if the address he'd given them was bogus, but then he'd still be a prisoner given that Sam had only agreed to let him go after Atlantis was retaken.

Then again, maybe she was just feeling guilty about her part in all of this.

Sam shook off the thought. She'd been through the logic of the situation many times before, each of which ended with the same scenario…Sheppard in jail, Atlantis back in Earth's hands, Stevenson in the hands of the I.O.A.

That last bit bothered her even more than the rest. Sheppard had chosen to defy orders, same as all those that stayed in Atlantis with him. Stevenson, on the other hand, had been changed by alien technology, so his actions weren't entirely his own. And to top it off, everything that he'd done warranted prison…not experimentation.

"General Carter," Captain Norris politely interrupted her introspection.

"Yes, Captain?"

"We're picking up another vessel in hyperspace directly behind us on the edge of our sensors."

Sam frowned. "What's its heading?" she asked, wondering if they'd stumbled onto the Wraith.

"It's trailing us on an identical heading," the Captain said worriedly, "and closing."

Sam stood up and looked at the hyperspace sensor screen herself. "Oh that can't be good."

"Ma'am?"

"Stay on course. The odds of us actually hitting each other in hyperspace are nil. At the speed they're going they'll pass us by long before we reach Atlantis."

"What if they follow us there?" Major Kelson asked from the opposite bridge station.

Sam shook her head. "Aside from a replicator-infested ship, every hyperdrive technology we've encountered maintains a constant speed once in hyperspace. The only way this contact could follow us is to drop out of hyperspace, then reenter at a slower speed. Actually, I think that's how the replicators managed it too, only using microsecond transitions between the two dimensions."

"Why would they do that?" Norris asked as they both continued to watch the contact 'blip' on the screen.

"They were in the process of upgrading the hyperdrive while in flight," Sam said, remembering back. "A microsecond translation back into realspace would theoretically be enough to reinitialize the hyperspace 'bubble' at a new inertial speed. Other than that, I have no idea how they managed it."

Kelson blinked twice. "I thought it took longer than that for a hyperspace bubble to fully degenerate."

"It does," Sam said, her eyes still on the contact as it got ever closer. "As I said, I don't fully understand how they did it."

"And the Wraith?" Kelson asked.

"Not from what we've seen of their technology."

"Then what are they doing?" Norris asked.

Sam cringed. "I don't know."

On the sensor screen the contact was nearly to them, but the more precise trace that Norris performed indicated that it was going to pass high above them by a few million kilometers. The blip merged on the screen with the dot that represented the three Earth ships…

Sam caught herself on the Captain's chair as the ship suddenly and violently exited hyperspace. "Report!" she said, clawing herself back into her chair.

"We're back in realspace," Norris said quickly. "So are the _Daedalus_ and _Apollo_."

"What the hell happened?" Sam asked rhetorically. "I want a hyperdrive diagnostic, now."

"Contact!" Norris yelled out. "Two million klicks and closing fast!"

"Shields up," Sam ordered. "Bring us around next to the _Daedalus_. Open a channel to our ships."

"General," Caldwell's voice came through before she could speak, "we've suffered some type of hyperdrive malfunction. Whatever knocked us out has disabled our drive."

Sam looked to Norris. The Captain nodded in confirmation. Their hyperdrive was offline as well.

"Copy that," Sam said over the open comm between all three ships. "Colonels bring your ships into formation alongside the _Odyssey_. We have incoming."

"We see it, _Odyssey_," Ellis's voice said evenly. "What are your orders?"

"Stand by weapons, but let them make the first move," Sam said as an image enhancement popped up on Kelson's screen. The Major turned to the General with a look of fear. "It's an Ancient warship."

"What?" Sam asked aloud.

"Could it be the replicators?" Ellis asked over the still open comm.

"If it is," Caldwell interrupted, "we're more than a match for one ship."

"Let's not make any assumptions," Sam urged as the _Aurora_-class warship decelerated before them. "Major, try and establish communications with that ship."

"They're firing drones!" Norris warned.

"Weapons hot!" Sam ordered as the Earth ships began to move evasively. "Return fire!"

An explosion in _Odyssey_'s aft rocked the ship, followed quickly by a second, then a third.

"Sublight is gone," Norris reported. "The drones are getting through our shields!"

"Readjust shield frequencies," Sam snapped, jumping out of her seat to do it herself.

Another explosion rocked the ship as the _Odyssey_ returned fire with its Asgard beams. Two lances of blue impacted the Ancient ship's shields…and were completely absorbed, along with several more shots from the _Daedalus_ and _Apollo_.

"Shield emitters have been destroyed!" Norris screamed panickly.

"_Daedalus_, _Apollo_," Sam yelled into the air. "If you still have engines get the hell out of here now! That's an order!"

Outside the ship half a dozen Asgard beams impacted the enemy ship, but again they were all absorbed by its shields. Carter couldn't understand how it was holding up against the barrage. The identical replicator ships they'd faced over Asuras hadn't been this strong.

"Fire every nuke we've got!" Sam yelled. "All tubes."

"Aren't we a little close for that?" Kelson asked, amidst another explosion somewhere on the ship.

"We're at minimal safe distance," Sam said, not feeling like giving explanations in the heat of battle. "Fire now!"

A dozen missile plumes shot out from the smoking _Odyssey_, mirroring those coming from the _Apollo_ that had been launched only a moment earlier. They raced in toward the Ancient ship as more sporadic drones passed them by halfway between the ships.

Small golden spurts erupted from the enemy ship, picking off some of the missiles. More followed from the port side of the Aurora as it utilized its rarely used energy weapons to down the incoming missiles…but it didn't get all of them.

Four slid past the counter-fire. Three of those were taken out in the last seconds by swiftly moving drones…but the fourth hit and detonated against the forward shields.

Sam covered her eyes against the glare that the auto-darkening viewport couldn't block out. It readjusted to transparency faster than her eyes did, but when her vision had adequately returned she saw the enemy ship just as it had been. It's forward shields still absorbed the incoming Asgard beams, though there were less being fired than before.

Another shot rocked the ship.

"Port battery destroyed," Norris reported, aghast.

Sam looked at the _Apollo_ as it made a strafing run close in on the Aurora. It fired its Asgard beams and rail guns at nearly point blank range to no avail. A single drone lept out from the ship and finished off the _Apollo_'s already damage sublight engines. The ship listed and flipped over as its momentum carried it past the hull of the Ancient warship.

A small white beam lept between the two ships for an instant, then disappeared. A moment later another one stretched out to the _Odyssey_.

Norris looked up to her with wide eyes in the eerily quiet bridge. No more drones were being fired, and all weapon systems on the _Odyssey_ had been destroyed. "The rings have been activated."

Sam immediately punched the intercom control on her command chair. "Intruder alert. All security teams to the ring room!"

* * *

"Step inside," Ronon said, standing back to back with Ford at the center of the _Tria_'s rings. Four replicators, all male in appearance, filled the excess spaces around them in a tight cluster. Ronon nodded and Malcolm, one of Larrin's crew, typed in the sequence to activate the rings.

The circular beams sprang up from the floor around them…the was a wash of light…then the rings retracted into the floor and they found themselves standing in the _Daedalus_ next to two of her crew wielding sidearms.

The two replicators nearest the guards silently raised their stun pistols and shot the two men, but not before the leftmost guard fired a round into and through one of the replicators. The nanites cells slowed the bullet, taking minute damage from the impact, but they did not stop it completely. It emerged from the replicator at a slower speed, then pinged off Ford's personal shield.

Aiden glanced down at the shield gauntlet that he wore on his right forearm. It was heavy as hell, but well worth it.

Ronon didn't say a word, he merely pointed to the door and his personal replicator walked forward, raised his weapon, and swung into the hallway beyond. It fired two shots before Ronon poked out behind it, covering the opposite direction.

No crew in sight, save for the one female that lay on the floor five meters from the group. Ronon waved the others out of the ring room and pointed Ford in the direction of the woman, while he went the other way. The replicators split between them.

The Setidan's group operated with Ares on point and the new replicator, which he'd named Oronat, bringing up the rear. Ronon kept to the middle, intent on being the primary shot while Ares' mission was to draw fire for him to respond to.

The tactic was called Trinary, and it required the threesome to be fast on their feet at all times. They could not stop, not delay, not separate. It was one of the earliest combat strategies taught to Setidan tactical squads and the basis for the more advanced formations they would learn in later years.

Ronon had Stevenson upgrade his personal replicator with the Trinary and other combat strategies, and for the purpose of this impromptu mission Ares was transmitting orders to Oronat whenever his default programming was lacking. Together the three moved quickly and efficiently through their section of the ship on the way to the bridge.

Their killcount was at twenty two…though technically that term was inadequate, given that none of the _Daedalus_'s crew was actually dead…when they encountered their first real obstacle…a sealed bulkhead.

"Ares, open the door," Ronon ordered, reversing his line of sight as he backed himself up against the wall to the right of the door. That way he could cover the rear and be ready to spring into the corridor on the other side without making himself a target for whoever was waiting for them.

Ares reached a hand up to the lock and his nanites dispersed from his hand. They chewed apart the lock then returned to form his five digits, which then wrapped around the handle and pushed the door open.

A hail of bullets flew through the opening and Ares, but the replicator charged through, stunning everyone in sight. Ronon let him have five seconds to himself then pulled himself around the corner and into the line of fire. A quick glance revealed several bodies on the floor with several many more personnel down the hallway firing panickly with their P-90s.

Ronon fired two quick stun blasts as he moved through the door, his boots crunching on the damaged nanites dropping off of Ares. Oronat followed him, as per instructions, but didn't fire. He kept his attention on the corridor behind them in case they should be flanked and would only fire ahead if one of the others became incapacitated.

Between the nearly immune replicator and the shielded Setidan, the _Daedalus_'s onboard troops didn't stand a chance. Despite the fact that they looked outfitted for ground combat, all of their armor and weaponry hadn't been enough to save them. Only Stevenson's orders to take them alive had done that.

Ronon did wonder, however, what they had been planning. The bodies he was stepping over were those of soldiers, not standard 304 crew.

He shook the thought off and focused his attention ahead. The bridge wasn't far off.

* * *

Ronon saw and heard three shots pass through Ares as he walked out of the connecting corridor and onto the bridge. More dust fell from the replicator, but his gun arm remained intact and fired quick, precise shots into whom Ronon couldn't yet see.

The traveler-made pistol that Ronon favored tracked Ares line of fire as its owner rounded the corner and had his first full view of the bridge. He saw two more bridge crew drop…as well as Colonel Caldwell fire another couple rounds through Ares from his sidearm.

Ronon's gun tracked toward the _Daedalus_'s commander and he managed half a grin as he pulled the trigger. Had he delayed any further Ares would have got to him first, but Ronon was pleased to have been the one to knock the arrogant ass backwards over the pilot's station and onto the floor with one beautiful orange stun blast to the chest.

The grin still on his face, Ronon keyed his wrist bound communicator. "Ford?"

"Standby," Aiden's voice came back. Ronon waited a long thirty seconds before he responded again. "Engine room secured," he reported.

"We have the bridge," Ronon told him. "Leave one of your replicators to stand guard, then take the other and sweep the ship."

"Roger that," Ford said.

Ronon rekeyed his communicator. "Commander Larrin?"

"_Tria_ here," her voice came back immediately. "What's your status?"

"Bridge and engine room secure," he reported. "We're currently sweeping the ship for stragglers."

"Good work," she said positively. "Stevenson and Teyla have already secured the other ships. I'm sending over a crate of restraints for the crew. It should be in your ring room within thirty seconds."

"Copy that. Do you want anything special done with Caldwell?"

"Who?" Larrin asked.

"The ship's captain," Ronon told her.

"No. Keep everyone onboard for now. Stevenson said he has a few things to take care of before we start transferring the crew."

Ronon raised an eyebrow. "What are we doing with the ships?"

"He didn't say, though right now they're little more than floating boxes. We had to slag most of their primary systems. By the way, check on your ship's life support."

Ronon hadn't thought about that, and did a quick systems check. He didn't understand half of what he was looking at, but with a little help from Ares he confirmed that the _Daedalus_'s life support systems were still functional.

"We're good," Ronon said. "Any further orders?"

"None at the moment. Just keep a lid on the crew and sit tight until he tells us what he wants us to do."

"Got it," he said, cutting the comm. He pointed to the crew. "Pick them up and follow me. Two at a time if you can."

The two replicators easily scooped up two crewmembers a piece, carrying one per shoulder. Ronon dipped down and hauled Caldwell's body over his shoulders. He led the way to the mess hall and began depositing the crew there, with Oronat left behind to watch over the bunch. Minutes later when the first of the crew began to awake the replicator shot them again, and continued to do so until Ronon had cleared the ship and locked the mess hall door shut.

Oronat was then ordered to stun anyone trying to leave the room, allowing them to return to consciousness so long as they stayed put. It took two failed attempts by the crew to escape before they decided to give it up and do just that.


	9. Ch 4

Outside his cell, Sheppard and Rodney could hear the sounds of battle as the ship rocked from what were obvious hits to the hull, though there were no windows around to confirm it.

"We can't be at Atlantis already," McKay said.

"No…" Sheppard said, looking up at the ceiling as if somehow he could see through it, "but I'd bet you twenty bucks I know who it is."

Another hit nearly knocked McKay out of his chair as the lights dimmed and the artificial gravity cut out for half a second. Off balanced Rodney slid out of his chair and landed hard on his butt. For a moment Sheppard was almost glad he was handcuffed to his chair…almost.

"Who?" McKay asked as he pulled himself back into this seat, briefly rubbing his behind before he sat down.

"Friends…" Sheppard told him. "And by the sound of the damage being done, I'd guess quite a few of them."

"_What_ friends?" McKay implored him.

Another hit rocked the ship and Sheppard didn't figure he needed to hide anything anymore. "Travelers."

"Travelers? Why would they come after you? I didn't think that chick liked you _that_ much."

Sheppard glared at him. "They signed on to Stevenson's payroll a few months ago. When I left Atlantis there were 63 of their ships in orbit."

"I thought you said we weren't at Atlantis yet?" Rodney said, stunned.

Sheppard shook his head. "That address I gave Sam wasn't for Atlantis, but its close. Close enough for the city's long range proximity sensors to pick us up long before we get there."

"You set her up?" Rodney asked, thoroughly pleased.

"Yep," Sheppard said as the explosions stopped.

"What do you suppose that means?" Rodney asked. "They won or we won?"

"Who's we?"

"Sorry. I meant Sam's guys…though technically since we're on her ship, if we get blown up then we lose too."

"I don't think that's the idea," Sheppard said, straining to hear. "I thought I just heard gunfire."

"Really?" Rodney asked, falling silent. He couldn't hear anything for maybe a minute, then the faint sounds of a firefight became undeniable…and increasing in volume.

McKay picked up his chair and moved it around behind Sheppard, then sat down again.

"What are you doing?"

"Well, if whoever is boarding the ship is looking for you they might not know that I'm on your side…and I don't want to get shot the moment they come through the door."

"So you thought you'd use me as a shield?" Sheppard said sarcastically.

"Well they're not going to shoot you, are they?"

"I hope not," he said just as a whine from an energy weapon muffled its way through the door, followed quickly by a thump.

"Was that the guard?" McKay whispered.

"I think so," Sheppard answered, a bit curious as to what was going on but happy none the less.

The door to their cell opened and a pure black figure walked into the room. Suddenly McKay felt himself lifted out of his seat by an invisible force.

"I'm with Sheppard…" he screamed in girlish fear.

"He is," John said, guessing as to who he was talking to.

"So he is," Stevenson's voice answered. The metal on Sheppard's cuffs broke in two and Rodney was released back onto his feet.

"Sweet," Sheppard said, standing up and stretching.

"Keep back," Stevenson said through his opaque faceplate. "I haven't secured the ship yet."

"Want some help?"

"No," Stevenson said, turning around and firing a blue orb from his wrist down the hallway.

"Stay here," Sheppard told Rodney as he sneaked a peak out of the cell after Stevenson was gone.

"Where are you going?"

"To find a weapon," Sheppard answered, running outside.

"Well don't leave me!" McKay whisper-yelled, following behind him.

He caught up to him two sections over, where he saw Sheppard retrieve a Zat from one of the bodies on the floor. "I told you to stay put," he scolded him.

"And that guy told you to stay put...you didn't," McKay objected.

"I know what I'm doing," Sheppard countered. "Stay behind me."

"Right," Rodney said in total agreement. "Don't I need a weapon too?" he asked as they began to sneak forward past the trail of bodies Stevenson had left.

"No…I don't want you shooting me in the back."

"I wouldn't do that."

"Not on purpose," Sheppard amended. Up ahead he heard a mechanical noise, quickly followed by the doors on an elevator shaft opening.

He fired his Zat the moment he had a shot, barely giving him enough time to notice that they were indeed _Odyssey_ personnel and not someone Stevenson had brought along with him.

The two men and one woman crumpled to the ground inside the elevator. Sheppard covered them for a second then jogged forward cautiously. He wasn't sure if they'd all received a full hit, and he knew that two would kill them. When he finally stood over the three crewmembers he studied them for a long moment then withdrew his Zat. They were out cold.

He turned away from the elevator only to have his feet swept out from under him by one of the 'unconscious' men.

It was the woman actually, and she'd caught Sheppard completely off guard. She wrestled him into a submission hold, then was knocked over when Rodney decided to pile on…literally.

Sheppard had the wind knocked out of his lungs by the extra weight smashing down on top of him, but McKay had managed to free the Colonel's left arm. He used it to gain leverage over the woman and, with the help of McKay's bulk pinning her to the ground, he was able to get the upper hand.

He retrieved the Zat from the ground nearby and held it on her. "Stand down!" he ordered. "I don't know how much of a hit you took, but two is supposed to kill a person. Do you really want to take that chance?"

The woman gritted her teeth, but eased her hold on Sheppard's right ankle and Rodney's neck. The scientist rolled off her and dramatically savored his next few breaths of air.

Sheppard kicked himself free and stood up. He motioned for her to do likewise.

"I know you," he said, unable to place the name.

"You should," she snarled back. "I was part of Atlantis's security division before you went rogue."

"Morris…" he said, remembering. "Walk."

She did as bidden and they followed the trail of bodies all the way to the bridge. When they got there Stevenson was nowhere to be seen and all the bridge crew were unconscious…including Carter.

Sheppard pulled a sidearm off the ground and held it on Morris instead of the Zat, which he tossed to Rodney.

"Thanks," he said, holding it upside down. "Where's the trigger?"

Sheppard rolled his eyes. "Never mind. Put it down before you shoot yourself."

"What? I can do this. Just show me where the…" he said as he accidently fired the weapon sideways into one of the bridge stations, shattering the screen in a shower of sparks as the electronics overloaded. "Don't say it!"

Sheppard held his tongue, but pointed his finger at the ground. Reluctantly Rodney set it down on the floor ever so gently. A moment later Stevenson walked back onto the bridge.

"There you are," Sheppard said, relieved. "You missed a few."

Stevenson shot the woman unconscious. "So I did."

Sheppard raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything. "What now?"

"The destabilization pulse temporarily knocked out their hyperdrives, but the primitive designs may have been damaged in the process. If they are I'll either have to repair them or have the _Tria_ tow them back to Atlantis one at a time."

"Sounds good. What about the crew?"

"Larrin's got the cargo holds set up as detention areas. We can start transferring the crew over once the other ships are secured. You can head on over with your friend now, if you want."

Sheppard motioned toward Carter. "I'll carry Sam back."

"Fine," Stevenson said, slightly miffed at the mention of her name, "but she goes in the hold same as the others."

"Agreed," Sheppard said, lifting her up into his arms. He repositioned her head so it leaned on his shoulder instead of falling backwards at an uncomfortable angle. "Come on Rodney."

"I can stay and help you with the hyperdrive," he offered as Stevenson walked off the bridge.

"He doesn't need help," Sheppard said, carrying Sam off. "Come on."

* * *

After verifying that the other strike teams had accomplished their missions and that none of the _Odyssey_'s crew were still at large, Stevenson made his way down to the Asgard Core room.

He activated the systems and slid his hands over the Asgard designed interface. He pulled a quick systems analysis and confirmed that the Asgard's legacy hadn't suffered any damage in the attack. He ran his fingers over the edge of the control panel slowly, getting a brief premonition from the touch. There was something important here, as he'd always suspected.

Stevenson released his touch and walked off. Precognitive abilities had been common among the Alterra…as had been the numerous misinterpretations and outright false predictions that prevented any meaningful forecasting of future events. They'd eventually tied some of the misinformation to a minute symbiosis between the minds of similar individuals in alternate realities.

Some Alterrans had become so adept, so in tune with their counterparts that they were able to see snippets of their lives, which in some cases mirrored their own. It was those that did not that led to erroneous prognostications…and the eventual development of a mental block against such interconnectivity between themselves and their counterparts.

But even with that mystery solved, there had always been a little extra intuition that popped up regularly that could never be scientifically explained. It was commonly held that such things weren't explainable simply due to the fact that the Alterran civilization hadn't advanced its understandings of the universe far enough to comprehend such things. The idea of 'magic' was non-existent, but given Stevenson's unique situation and his knowledge of such things in Earth cultures…he did get the feeling that these intuitions were more than just unexplained science.

Perhaps that's just because they were new to him, but regardless he wasn't going to ignore them…nor was he going to trust their accuracy. He considered them to be hunches, and played them as such. As for this recurring hunch, he had little doubt that it would pan out. The Asgard had entrusted the humans with the core for a reason…and he guessed there was more to that reason than they had told them.

Even so, the discovery of that secret would have to wait until he dealt with the humans. After which, he'd have plenty of time to search the depths of the database…and try to discover how exactly the Ascended Empire had managed to kill them.

* * *

"General?" Sam heard someone ask from above her.

Carter blinked her eyes again, this time clearing her vision and making out a pair of faces above her.

"General?" Caldwell repeated again, helping her to sit up slowly.

"Colonel?" she asked, her head pounding. She glanced around, shaking off the disorientation from being stunned. "Where are we?"

"On the Ancient warship would be my guess," he said, sitting down on the cargo bay floor beside her. "I woke up about ten minutes ago."

"I take it the same black warrior got you to?" Sam said, holding her hand against her forehead.

"No," Caldwell said angrily. "Ronon Dex was what got to me…and what I could have sworn was a replicator."

Sam's mind suddenly caught up to the situation. "Did you say replicator?"

"That'd be my guess. I fired several rounds straight through before Ronon stunned me."

"That's not what happened on the _Odyssey_," she told him, trying to stand up then thinking better of it. "A person, wearing some type of black, liquid armor took over the ship."

"Just one?"

Sam nodded, suddenly regretting the motion. "We tracked his progress from the bridge. There was just the one. He had some type of golden plasma weapon. It burned right through our security doors."

"I suppose we should be grateful they stunned us," Caldwell said unconvincingly, "but I'm getting a very bad vibe about this."

"Me too," Sam said, making a second attempt at standing. She succeeded with help from Caldwell. "Have you taken a head count?"

"Fifty two so far, but they keep bringing in more groups every few minutes."

Sam did a full 160, staring at the contents of the cargo bay. "This is too small to be the primary storage bay."

"Assuming this ship is designed to Ancient specs, I'd agree," Caldwell said as Sam leaned on his arm for support. She'd been hit twice by the stun weapon, if her memory was correct. Once in the arm, then once in abs.

"I assume the doors are locked."

"Actually they're using a force field just inside the perimeter of the walls. We don't have access to the doors, save for those," he said, pointing to the far side of the bay.

"Why those?"

"They lead to a set of restrooms, thankfully," Caldwell said sarcastically. "I already tried finding a way out through them, but didn't have any luck."

"That's a bad sign," Carter said, finally releasing his arm. Her strength was starting to come back.

"How so?"

"It means they intend to hold us here for a while."

"You're right. I hadn't thought about that."

"Have you seen anyone you recognized besides Ronon?"

"Larrin and what looked like a group of travelers brought in the last bunch."

Sam raised her eyebrows. "Really. I thought I heard their Aurora was destroyed during the incident with the Attero device."

"That's what I thought too," Caldwell said pessimistically. "None of this is making any sense."

"Whoever it was that boarded the _Odyssey_ came for Sheppard. He freed him before he took over the bridge."

"You think it was Stevenson?"

"Possibly," Sam admitted, "but I don't see the Traveler connection."

"How did they manage to knock us out of hyperspace anyway? I thought that was impossible."

"I don't know," Sam said, concerned. "Whoever it is knows a lot more about hyperspace than we do."

"Now there's a cheery thought," Caldwell said as one of the sets of doors into the bay opened. "Speak of the devil."

Larrin led the way through, followed by six more Earth personnel on floating sleds, all unconscious, two Traveler guards…and Teyla.

"Hey Blondie," Larrin said, looking directly at Carter. "Get over here."

Sam walked toward the edge of the blue force field as it shimmered into translucence as the guards pushed the sleds through. They pulled the unconscious crewmen off and laid them on the floor as Sam slowly walked toward the edge of the shield were Larrin was standing.

"What do you want?"

"Not me," Larrin answered tersely as she touched a small crystal on her wristband. The section of shield the guards had entered and exited through shimmered once then returned to transparency. "Her."

Larrin walked away with her guards, but Teyla remained.

"Hello Colonel Carter," she said respectfully as she approached the edge of the shield and stopped barely two feet from Sam.

"Teyla, what's going on?" she asked, almost pleading.

"I could ask you the same question."

"Why we're here in Pegasus?"

Teyla nodded.

Sam sighed, glanced at the floor, then locked eyes with the Athosian. "I won't lie to you. We came here to retake Atlantis."

Teyla locked her fingers together over the trim red clothing clinging to her body like a glove and settled them over her abdomen in a patient gesture. "So that you may fulfill your plans to destroy it?"

"No, we weren't going to destroy it," Sam said quickly. "That option has been taken off the table."

"I'm pleased to hear it," Teyla said, almost sarcastically.

Sam glanced up at the invisible shield separating them. "What are we doing here?"

"You have been placed aboard this ship for transport back to Atlantis. Your ships' hyperdrives were damaged in the battle and require repairs before they too will be brought to Atlantis. You will be arriving a day or so before them."

"And then?"

"That has not yet been decided," Teyla said stiffly.

"You're angry, aren't you?"

"Should I not be? If you had succeeded in capturing Atlantis, any hope of freeing this galaxy of the Wraith would have been destroyed."

"Even with Atlantis, we couldn't stop the Wraith," Sam argued. "Yes, we did them some damage, but we didn't have the resources to win a war against the same enemy that defeated the Ancients."

"The Wraith defeated the Lanteans, not the Alterra," Teyla corrected her. "And even if Earth is unwilling to continue the fight, it has no right to deny us the chance to free ourselves. Atlantis doesn't belong to you."

"Who does it belong to, Teyla? Be honest, who would have more use for the city, our people that understand its technology or the Athosians and others like your people who can't use, let alone understand it."

"My former people's lack of technical skills is not an excuse for Earth stealing Atlantis from us."

"Your 'former' people?"

"I am no longer Athosian," Teyla said proudly. "I am now Alterran."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard correctly. I have become one of the Ancestors of the Ancestors, those that created the Lanteans before they themselves were killed from a plague. They are the ones you call Ancients from your home galaxy."

"How?" Sam said, not believing what she was hearing.

"Stevenson has been given the power to change those whom he deems worthy into Alterra. I am the second person he has gifted with this honor, and I do not believe I will be the last."

"Wait a minute," Sam said, thinking fast. "You're saying that the Repository of Knowledge that altered Stevenson did more than upload the Ancient's knowledge into his mind…it actually transformed him into one of them?"

"Yes."

"Then he had you go through the same process?"

"No, Colonel. He transformed me himself, through nothing more than the touch of skin and mind. My transformation isn't yet complete, nor is my training, but within a few more months I will be fully Alterran, in both body and mind."

"So you see," Teyla continued when Sam was at a loss for words, "we not only have the power to fight the Wraith, we now have the power to annihilate them once and for all. This is what you have attempted to deny us, and fortunately for the Pegasus galaxy you have failed."

"You're serious," Sam said, still finding it hard to believe.

"I am. I am also dismayed that you of all people would have taken part in this."

"I have my reasons."

"I'm listening."

Sam sighed. "I guess there's not really anything I can say to get you to let us out of this cell."

"No, but I would like to hear why you turned against your friends."

"I never turned against you," she said, the words catching in your throat. "You don't understand the chain of command. When Sheppard did what he did, he made himself an enemy of Earth."

"And of you?"

"Yes and no."

Teyla shook her head. "You cannot have it both ways. You are either his enemy or his friend. You have known each other too long for there to be any other option."

"Teyla, I don't see any of you as my enemy."

"Your actions speak otherwise."

"My actions aren't of my own making. I have orders that I have to follow whether I like them or not."

"There is always a choice…just perhaps not always a pleasant one."

"You're saying I should have turned rogue like Sheppard did?"

"Why not? If your superiors are as corrupt as you imply, why then would you continue to follow them?"

Sam laughed without any trace of humor. "It's nowhere near that simple."

"Yes it is," Teyla said softly. "It is a matter of whether you make decisions for yourself, or let others make those choices for you. You have allowed the latter to take place. You claim you are only following the orders of others, but somewhere along the line you had to make the choice to ignore your own intuition, your own conscious. You gave away your freedom at that moment, but not the responsibility for your actions."

Teyla turned and walked away from the force field, leaving Sam on the other side.

"Wait…don't go."

Teyla stopped and half turned back. "You have lost your way, Samantha. If you are the person I believed you to be, then you will find your way back. If not, then we shall never speak again."

Teyla left the cargo hold, her Ancient robes fluttering slightly along her legs and arms as she walked out the doors.

Caldwell walked up to Sam and put his hand on her shoulder. "That sounded rough."

"I have a feeling that's just the tip of the ice berg," she warned him. "This far away from Earth, there's no one to rescue us."

"Which leaves us at their mercy," Caldwell said ominously. "The same people we were going to haul back to Earth for courts martial or leave behind in Pegasus at the mercy of the Wraith."

"Let's hope they don't hold too much of a grudge," Sam said, trying to get her nerve back. She was the leader here. The others needed her to stay strong.

"Sheppard's not that kind of person," Caldwell assured her.

"And Stevenson?" she asked, already knowing the answer.

Caldwell shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. He used to be SGC…let's hope that counts for something."

"Unless we can find a way to escape this shield, hoping is all we're going to be able to do."

"You have any ideas?" Caldwell asked, a bit more positive.

"Not yet, but I'm working on it." She turned and glanced back over the portion of her crew that was assembled in this cell. "Do an inventory check on everything in our possession. Maybe someone had something useful in their pockets when they got stunned."

"Worth a try," Caldwell said, walking quietly over to the nearest crewmen. He knew better than to announce their intentions publically, and would carry out his search person to person in as ambiguous a manner as possible.

Sam meanwhile took off her jacket and began to walk the perimeter of the shield, testing for the invisible barrier with the cloth instead of her skin. Maybe they'd overlooked a weakness when the set up the shield emitters, which she could clearly see attached to the floor on the other side, or maybe there was a loose panel in the floor or in the restrooms which Caldwell had mentioned.

Either way, it was something to do. And the last thing Sam wanted was to sit and think about how she'd totally screwed up this mission.


	10. Ch 5

"Let's go," Larrin told Carter and Caldwell as she pulled them out of the confinement area at gunpoint.

"Where are we going?" Caldwell asked.

"You're getting your own private rooms in Atlantis," Larrin answered as she nudged them out through the door into the corridors that spanned the length of the _Tria_.

"What about the rest of our people?" Sam asked.

"They're staying put for the moment," Larrin said, stopping in the middle of the hallway. "I've gotta ask…how in the blazes did you ever think you'd have a chance of retaking Atlantis?"

"As long as we're prisoners," Sam said, ignoring her question, "we don't really have to answer questions like that, now do we."

Larrin half smiled, but it wasn't a pleasant one. "Have a look," she said, pointing inside an adjacent room with her gun. Caldwell and Carter reluctantly walked inside…and were treated with an orbital view of Hoth as the _Tria_ descended towards the surface through the mass of ships that was only a small portion of the Traveler fleet.

"Like I said…you didn't stand a chance," Larrin scoffed, nudging Caldwell in the back as the _Tria_ started to brush against the first wisps of atmosphere.

The two Earth officers exchanged glances, then let Larrin lead them to the _Tria_'s ring room.

"Inside," she ordered.

Caldwell and Carter stepped inside the rings, but Larrin didn't follow. Instead she walked over to the ring controls. "Look on the bright side," she said sarcastically. "At least you're making it inside the city. Had you actually gotten this far on your own, our fleet would have turned your pathetic ships into scrap."

The rings sprang up around the pair, then quickly descended back into the floor…and Caldwell and Carter found themselves staring at Ronon inside the very ring platform they'd intended to use to board the city during the assault.

"Welcome back," the Setidan said, smiling. He motioned them forward with his standard pistol, an identical match for the weapon Larrin carried.

Caldwell looked down at the gun.

"You know I'll use it," Ronon warned.

"Yeah," Caldwell said, stepping out ahead of Sam. She followed him and Ronon out of Atlantis's ring room while two men she didn't recognize took up guard positions behind them.

Both ship captains knew better than to try to escape under Ronon's watch. Caldwell stood proud under the scrutiny of the passersby that they encountered on the way to the brig, some of whom he recognized as defectors, others were Pegasus natives like Ronon, but there were many more new faces than old, which made him feel even more concerned. Whatever was taking place in Atlantis had gone well beyond an internal Earth squabble.

Sam, meanwhile, hung her head and tried to walk as quickly as possible.

* * *

"Nice digs," Dr. Jackson said as he walked into the brig.

"Daniel?" Sam said in surprise. "How did you get here?"

"I live here," he said pointedly. "The question is…what are you doing here?"

Sam sighed. "Not you too."

"Me too what?"

"Sheppard already gave me an ear full," she said bashfully. "How did you get to Atlantis?"

"Oh, let's just say I was given an invitation."

"An invitation?" Sam asked skeptically.

"Yeah…then a nice, short trip via that Ancient warship you recently had a run in with, I hear."

"Tell me about it," Sam said, sitting down on the lone chair provided in her square Atlantis cell. She dipped her head, then raised it back up with a renewed energy. "I literally don't know how they did it."

"Did what?"

"Daniel, their drones passed right through our Asgard shields."

"And you didn't think they would?"

"No."

"Why not? We've seen drones pass through a ship's shields before. We know Anubis's mothership was upgraded with at least some Ancient knowledge and even its shields couldn't protect against the drones."

"But according to the Asgard data core, their shields are supposed to block the drones. I made damn sure of that before I even considered attacking the city."

"Which brings up a whole other line of conversation," Daniel said, switching subjects.

"Why I did it?"

"Why did you do it?" Daniel asked in all seriousness. "These were your friends and colleagues for over a year. The I.O.A. did them dirty and they fought back. I can't for the life of me understand why you sided against them."

"I didn't turn against them...they turned against Earth."

"They turned against the I.O.A.," Daniel countered. "That's a big difference."

"The I.O.A. _is_ Earth. Like it or not, that's the reality of the current situation."

"Look, I know you've been away for a while, but things with the I.O.A. have been getting worse."

Sam frowned. "How so?"

"I won't bore you with the details, but let's just say their shadier side is growing in influence and isn't afraid to see the light of day. They're doing things in the open that five years ago they'd have been imprisoned for…nowadays it's just par for the course."

"Like what?" Sam pressed.

"Alright…a month before I left General Landry stumbled onto a little side project the I.O.A. had set up on a moon called Belson. It was a medical facility that they were using to conduct illicit research that was banned on Earth. Now, even though Belson had a stargate, they didn't once use it to send their people or supplies through. Instead they hid the whole affair, using the _Daedalus_ and the _Apollo_ to ferry cargo to and from the moon while enroute to other locations. Neither the Captains nor the crew were told the content of the cargo they were carrying, only that they had classified drop orders given to them from time to time from the SGC."

"Wait…if it came from the SGC, then Landry should have known about it."

Daniel shook its head. "The orders were forged by an I.O.A. associate assigned to the SGC. So technically the orders were coming from the facility, but they were not originating from the US military as the _Daedalus_ and _Apollo_ believed."

Sam made a noise under her breath. "The gall of some people. I assume either Landry or O'Neill took care of it?"

"Jack wanted to, but the President stepped in and sanctioned their activities."

"What?!"

"I know…Jack about blew a gasket. The deal was that medical facility had to abandon the forbidden research and be subjected to official oversight…by an I.O.A. representative."

"That's insane. You said they were the ones who set it up in the first place."

"Exactly. Their corruption is being sanctioned at an official level, one that people like Landry and O'Neill can't always undo. And here I find out that you're working with them."

"No," Sam said, almost out of reflex. "My orders came from O'Neill."

"Really," Daniel said, frowning. "I find that hard to believe."

"He's the one that chose me for the assignment."

Daniel shook his head slowly. "No, there's got to be more to it than that. What were his exact orders?"

Sam swallowed. "To recover Atlantis if possible."

Daniel raised an eyebrow. "If possible?"

"He said if it couldn't be done then we'd abandon the idea entirely. I thought we could pull it off, based on the information we'd been given. I never suspected the Asgard core would contain misinformation."

"Who says it did?"

"Daniel, it said the Asgards' shields protected against the drone weapons."

"Ok, but in all fairness, the _Odyssey_, even with all the upgrades and the ZPM it carries, is still a far cry from an actual Asgard ship."

Sam gave him a patronizing look. "They gave us the best of what they had."

"I know, they said as much, but I've been thinking about this for a long time, both during my research through the Asgard database and more recently the files the Ancients had on the Asgard, which have provided some significant insights into their civilization and culture."

"And?"

"Why did they choose to upgrade the _Odyssey_ and not one of their own ships? If they were really giving us everything they had, and we know they had at least a few warships left after the war with the replicators, why didn't they give us those?"

Sam blinked. "I guess I never thought about it that way."

"Well I have, and I think there was a reason behind it. By giving us the blueprints for their technology, they were insuring that we'd have to gain a basic grasp of the principles of the science before we could recreate it ourselves. They knew that would take decades, if not centuries, and we'd have to advance as a civilization in order to take full advantage of what they'd given us. Upgrading the _Odyssey_ was a way to protect their legacy and give us a means to fight the Ori…short of simply giving us their ships."

"Wait a minute," Sam interrupted. "You're saying they gave us the bike, but with the training wheels still attached?"

"Nice metaphor," he granted. "But I think you've hit it on the head. We weren't ready for everything…but they still gave us everything. And the way in which they did ensured that we had to advance before we'd be able to use it."

"So you're saying a real Asgard ship probably could have stood up to the drones," Sam said, thinking out loud.

"They are a lot bigger than ours."

Sam laughed. "Size really isn't the issue, Daniel. It's the design of the shield that counts."

"Then how did they do it?" Daniel asked, clearly waiting for an answer.

Sam shrugged.

"And, by the way, how did you _think_ things were going to turn out going up against a real live _Ancient_?" Daniel said, heavily emphasizing that last bit.

Sam turned to the side, avoiding his gaze.

"Come on, Sam. I know you. What's the unseen angle in all this?"

She turned back. "Bottom line…Earth needs Atlantis. It's too valuable an asset to let go."

"Sam, the I.O.A. was going to destroy it in the first place."

"I know," she said, nodding her head. "And I'm glad it worked out so they didn't. Thankfully, we were able to get them to change their policy on that."

Daniel shook his head slowly. "I don't believe it. You're a sell out."

"A what?" Sam protested.

"You heard me. A sell out. You were the last person in the galaxy I would have expected to succumb to their corruptive influences…but somehow they got to you. Somehow they turned you."

"Daniel!"

"No," he said, taking a half step back. "Sheppard was right. You've changed. I didn't believe it when he asked me to talk to you, but now sadly I see he was right."

"What am I supposed to say to that?" Sam bit back. "You talk to me for all of two minutes then turn your back on me like I was a stranger."

"No one is turning their back on you," Daniel said calmly, but distantly. "You used to know the difference between right and wrong, and given that you're doing things that the old you would never have done, I have to assume that you no longer possess that base function. The only other alternative is that you know the difference and have intentionally chosen the side of evil…which I flat out refuse to believe."

"What? So I'm evil now?"

"You've allied yourself to it," Daniel said, crossing his arms over his chest. "The Sam I knew would have died first…or had some incredibly brilliant plan to pull the wool over the eyes of the enemy and turn them upside down at the last moment. If that's the case please elaborate."

"Well aren't you smug today."

Daniel nodded. "I thought so," he said, quietly turning around and leaving.

Sam got up out of her chair when he went, but didn't say anything. Instead she turned around and kicked the chair into the shield bars in frustration.

* * *

Stevenson stood in the gateroom surrounded by seventy three Earth personnel seated on the floor in neat rows while replicator guards wielding stun rifles kept watch over them. The Alterra waited silently until all of this first group were settled into their cramped formations before he spoke.

"You find yourselves captives in a war not of your own making," he began, walking slowly up the column of open floor between the stargate and steps leading up to the control room. The Earth personnel were lined up on either side of that two meter wide gap.

"You came here, thinking you were going to reclaim stolen property of Earth and capture the criminals responsible. You have been lied to…and now it is time that you heard the truth."

"I am Ryan Stevenson, formerly a member of SG-14, and before that SG-7. On a mission to explore one of the remaining uncharted stargate addresses I encountered a device called the Repository of Knowledge. Some of you know of it as a 'head sucker' because that is the term Jack O'Neill labeled it with when he encountered two similar devices. He was nearly killed both times, and only survived due to the intervention of the Asgard."

"Because of the danger involved, standing orders were given never to interact with the technology if it was ever encountered again. I violated those standing orders when I discovered a third device and used it on myself."

"I did so because I was already dying from a degenerative disease that Earth's doctors could not cure. I figured what the hell, I might as well try. If I died, at least it would be a quick death, unlike the long debilitating one I had ahead of me."

"I nearly died from using the technology, but my physiology was slightly more advanced than that of O'Neill's and I survived by the barest of margins. As some of you have been told, I now possess the knowledge of the Ancients…but that in itself is another lie."

"I have not been given a mental library of their knowledge…I have been transformed into one of the original Ancients, known as the Alterra. The Repository of Knowledge was designed to transform a sufficiently advanced human into an Alterra for the express purpose of rebuilding the Ancient civilization millions of years after it was destroyed by a plague that killed every last one of them."

"The Lanteans, that inhabited this city, were like you in the beginning. They were not Alterra, they were humans, tasked with safeguarding this city and protecting the lesser humans developing within the Pegasus galaxy. It was feared that they too might encounter the plague and be killed…but they didn't, and they weren't. The Lanteans developed physically and mentally over several million years, making them far more advanced than you, but still not the equivalent of us."

"I say 'us' because I am fully Alterra now. I know not only from history but from personal experience how advanced, and how inferior the Lanteans were. They used the knowledge and technology we left them to build their own civilization in this galaxy, one that mirrored ours, but one that also fell far short of what we once had. Meanwhile, the humans in your galaxy continued to develop, and the Repository of Knowledge continued to wait while you advanced."

"The Lanteans didn't know of the Repository's existence. None were built in Pegasus, and they had been given strict orders never to leave this galaxy, for fear of them contracting the plague that killed the Alterra. This is why Pegasus stargates do not connect with those in the rest of the gate network. The Lanteans were isolated in order to protect them…and continued to be so until they lost the war against the Wraith and the few survivors fled back to Earth as a last resort."

"Could one of them have used the Repository and become Alterran? Yes, they were physiologically advanced enough at that point to have used the technology without fear of death…but they were never meant for it, and had no knowledge of it. They lived out their lives away from the Pegasus galaxy as they chose, and what happened to most of them is still a mystery. Many, I suspect, altered the course of history on Earth and are partly responsible for it being one of the more developed human worlds in the galaxy."

"Now, we come to the present. I have used the Repository. I have survived. I have become Alterra. The plans laid down by the Ancients millions of years ago are now, finally, beginning to unfold. I have begun to rebuild our civilization, and whereas I was one Alterra, now there are three. And in coming years there will be many more."

"The Return of the Ancients has begun. Races across twenty three galaxies have been waiting for this day throughout most of their recorded history. We were their friends and allies, and when we were killed it left them defenseless and alone. Our brethren, the Asgard and the Furlings, did their best to aid them, but they were ill equipped for the task. By my count, two thirds of the races that we befriended have been wiped from existence in our absence."

"I will not let the remaining third suffer their fate. We are building as fast as we can, but a civilization that spans galaxies is not an easy thing to recreate. It will take time, and I hope that our friends can survive a little bit longer until we are able to come to their aid as we once did so long ago."

"I tell you this so that you will understand that your mission to retake Atlantis was not one of capturing criminals…you were ignorantly attempting to destroy the Alterrans for a second time before we'd barely begun to rise again."

"Fortunately, you were ill equipped for the task, and have failed miserably. To those of you assembled here, I do not hold a grudge against you. Your failure has saved you from retribution. Even an ignorant action can be deadly, but your actions proved impotent. Others among you, still held within the containment cells, knew more than you did, and I will not forgive them so easily."

"In a few moments we will open a wormhole back to Earth. You are all free to go…but you go with a warning. You now know the truth. If you decide to move against us again, then you are knowingly becoming our enemy, and you will be treated accordingly."

"However, if any among you wish to stay and help us rebuild, I offer you that chance here and now. You will be welcome here, as will your skills, limited as they may be."

Stevenson ended his speech on that note and climbed the stairs into the control room.

"Dial Avalon," he told Corporal Fulton, who was manning the control room that shift.

When the wormhole opened Stevenson activated the visual communications link. "Stargate Command, this is Atlantis. I need to speak to General Landry immediately."

The voice of the control room Sergeant came back on audio only. "Ah, may I ask who you are?"

Stevenson raised an eyebrow. "Nice to see you too, Sparky."

"Ryan?" Walter asked, activating their half of the visual communications link.

"Who else?"

"Actually, we weren't expecting to hear from you…"

"I know, you were expecting to hear from General Carter saying that she'd recaptured Atlantis."

"Ah, well…I…"

"Relax, Sparky. I'm not upset with you, but I do need to talk to Landry."

"He's on his way now."

"He's here now," Landry's voice said a moment before he walked into the picture.

"General…" Stevenson said evenly.

"You'll forgive me if I don't look happy to see you."

"I need you to lower the iris."

"Really?" Landry said, smiling. "Now why would we do that?"

"So I can return your people to you," Stevenson said, not caring for his tone. "Several groups over the next few hours."

All levity drained from Landry's face. "What happened?"

"They lost," Stevenson said simply. "We took them alive, if that's any conciliation, and I don't intend on holding them here indefinitely. So if you don't mind…"

"Look here son, you know I can't just lower the iris based on your word. Not even if you trotted General Carter out and had her tell us herself."

"General, I'm asking nicely. If I have to take down your iris myself, it will be in such a way that you'll have to buy a new one afterwards…and I know how much the Air Force hates to throw good money away."

"You know I don't take well to threats," Landry warned.

"Is that a no?"

"That's a no," the General said defiantly. "However, if you really do have our people then we need to discuss…"

Stevenson didn't bother to listen to what he said next as he walked out of the control room and down to the stargate. He stood in front of the open wormhole and mentally linked to the gate. He could see the inside of stargate command as well as the exact position of the iris. He knew that in its current position matter wouldn't materialize and even the disruptive vortex couldn't manifest…but if it moved even a fraction of a millimeter distant."

Stevenson raised his left hand, palm up toward the event horizon and released a golden stream of energy into it. Through his mental link he monitored the status of the iris, which didn't move, but the inside layer of it had became less rigid, even molten in the tiny center of the baseball-sized impact point.

He let loose a slightly larger stream of destructive energy in the exact same spot and succeeded in making the opposite side glow, which threw the SGC personnel into a tizzy, but he had accomplished his goal. The point of impact from his attack had lost the thin layer of molecules of that spot. They'd been melted away into a nearly imperceptible wrinkle on the back side of the iris, but with the gate's intricate sensors he could see that he'd made just enough of a crack.

Stevenson lowered his hand and mentally ordered the gate on the terminating side to pulse its vortex. When it did, only the smallest part of it formed within that crack, which ate away a little more of the dense material that made up the iris.

Then it pulsed again, and again, and again. Each time more material was stripped away from the back side of the iris, and as the crack enlarged, more and more of the vortex was able to manifest itself.

After dozens of pulses a small hole the size of a golf ball came into view from Landry's side of the iris. The next pulse extended ten feet out through that hole and enlarged it, eating away laterally at the iris material.

"Son of a bitch," Landry said, not believing his eyes.

"General?" Walter asked.

"Security teams to the gateroom," Landry ordered.

* * *

After hundreds of pulses Stevenson finally had the iris destroyed, save for a small ring around the outside that would trip anyone coming through the gate that the vortex couldn't reach without risk of splashing up against the side walls of the gate.

Stevenson stopped the pulses and instead ordered the Pegasus gate to descend a foot further into the floor. The hydraulics beneath the massive ring lowered it slowly while the floor panels adjusted themselves around its new position.

The Alterran turned around and addressed the captives one last time. "The time to choose has come. Those wishing to return to Earth may do so now. The iris is no longer blocking the gate, but mind the bump as you step through. The other side is a bit lower now, so you'll have to step down when you come through. Bend at the knees when you go through or make a tiny hop through the event horizon and you shouldn't fall, but just in case you do we'll send you through one at a time."

"Guards, leave us and return with the second group."

The replicators moved as one and walked off into the city as the Earth personnel began to stand.

"Form a line here. I can see what happens on the other side, so if you fall I'll know to give you a few seconds to pick yourself up."

Captain Norris was the first to step into line, with most of those assembled organizing themselves behind her…but at least a dozen walked off to the corners of the room, making their intent to stay clear. Some of the Earth-bound personnel gave them dirty looks, but their fortitude didn't give out and they held their ground.

"Go," Stevenson told Norris, who opted to bend low while moving into the gate.

On the other side Stevenson saw the Captain stumble more from the guns pointed at her than the drop. He saw Landry order them to stand down and the Captain walk down the ramp.

"Next," he said patiently.

* * *

After all the groups had gone through the gate, Sheppard brought Caldwell, Ellis, Woolsey, and Carter down by themselves. They were the last four members of the botched expedition for Stevenson to deal with…but with them being the willing instigators his chat with them was going to be of a different nature.

"Before we begin," Stevenson said, crossing his arms over his chest in front of the still open gate. He still had 17 minutes left on this wormhole before the auto-close function would activate, and he didn't think this conversation would take that long. "All of your people have been sent back to Earth through the stargate or they've chosen to remain here in Atlantis."

"Chosen?" Woolsey asked, not believing it. "Why would they do that?"

"Some of them are pretty smart," Sheppard chimed in. "Present company not included."

"I don't think…" Woolsey began before Stevenson took away his ability to talk.

"Listen," he said quietly, looking at all four people before releasing his hold on Woolsey's vocal chords. "What you came here to do was not in the spirit of the stargate program that I signed up for. We were supposed to be explorers and defenders of Earth, making contact with other worlds and forming alliances with those we found that we could call friend."

"What you came here to do went well beyond that. It involved revenge, greed, arrogance, and above all else corruption. The I.O.A.," he said, looking directly at Woolsey, "is detrimental to Earth's future, both with regards to internal operations and your relationships with other worlds. They've proven to be cheats, liars, cowards, and two-faced backstabbers that no offworld representative in their right mind could ever come to trust. They will continue to corrupt the SGC and isolate Earth from potential allies and trading partners."

"As for the corruption part, you three are prime examples. They've got you doing their dirty work for them. You are Air Force officers…Colonels all. A certain level of moral fortitude is expected of all officers, but the leadership responsibilities that go along with being a Colonel require you to know when to follow orders and when to refuse them."

"The longer the I.O.A. has its tendrils into the stargate program, the more difficult it will be to refuse immoral orders without throwing your entire career away. They are using intimidation to encourage good people to keep their mouth shut when they would normally protest. When that happens, the corruption of the program begins to snowball until it becomes so embedded that it cannot be removed…or until someone comes in from the outside and cuts it out forcefully."

"I didn't expect this from the three of you," Stevenson said, looking at each captain in turn. Then he looked at Woolsey. "Such things are usually reserved for scum like him that hide their evil beneath a façade of weak civility, only to show their true colors when they believe themselves to be in a position of power."

"On your ships you are the power," Stevenson reminded them. "If you are given orders to the contrary, to let someone like him command you, you should refuse the assignment, as you should have refused this one. That error in judgment has cost you your ships, which we will be putting to more productive use."

"As for you," Stevenson said, his voice growing darker. "I had a chat with McKay before he went back to Earth. He told me you were supposed to abandon the mission after a year. Why didn't you?"

Sam ground her teeth, mentally cursing Rodney. "The mission wasn't complete."

Stevenson nodded. "The difference between you and them," he said, pointing at Caldwell and Ellis, "is that you chose this mission. They were assigned to it. You should have returned to Earth as your orders allowed when your deployment time expired. You chose to continue, which makes you as culpable as them," he said, pointing at Woolsey.

Stevenson lowered his eyes to the floor and closed them in disgust. "Go."

After a few exchanged looks, the foursome walked past Stevenson towards the still open gate.

"What was that?" Stevenson asked angrily, turning about and grabbing Woolsey in a telekinetic hold.

"I didn't say anyt…," he said as he was lifted a foot off the floor.

"No, don't hide it," Stevenson said, searching his mind. "Something about me."

Woolsey didn't, or couldn't, say anything.

"You really thought you could pull that off," Stevenson said. "That wouldn't have worked either."

Sheppard frowned, still standing on the steps. Whatever Woolsey was saying to him must have been within his mind.

"That's not the first time you've proposed that, is it?" Stevenson said, visibly constricting Woolsey's neck. "And what did you plan to do when I broke free?"

Woolsey's mind connected to another train of thought in response to that question and Stevenson quickly followed that thread into others like it, exposing a web of memories Woolsey was doing his best to hide from him.

Stevenson's eyes narrowed sharply, and from where Sam was standing it was obvious that he was furious.

The next sound anyone heard was the snap of Woolsey's neck.

"What the…" Sheppard began to say before he suddenly lost his voice…and his ability to move.

Stevenson threw Woolsey's dead body back through the gate then turned and telekinetically picked up Carter. He pulled her up off the ground a few inches and brought her up in front of him.

"Did you know?" he asked, searching her mind.

She didn't.

Suddenly Sam's mind was flooded with memories Stevenson had taken from Woolsey. They were so loud, so vivid that she couldn't block them out. For the next few moments all she could see and hear was what Woolsey had seen and heard and said. She could also feel his emotions and sense his thoughts in those brief snippets of memory.

Her stomach turned upside down in the process, made even worse by the point by point explanation from Stevenson on every misstep she had made. He even went so far as to forcefully tear away the mental blocks and rationalizations she'd been using to combat her own conscious in order to find some level of symbiosis with Earth's leadership…and in doing so exposed Carter to the full emotional effect of what she had done, and what Woolsey and the I.O.A. had planned to do.

It was too much for her to handle, but she couldn't stop it. What felt like an hour of torture took place in only ten seconds, at the end of which Sam's eyes were swollen and gushing with tears.

Stevenson pulled her within a few inches of his face. "I expected more of you."

With those five words hanging in the air and echoing in Sam's mind, Stevenson threw her backwards through the stargate to what would undoubtedly be a very hard landing on the other side.

Stevenson pulled a quick check on the minds of the other two Colonels, but they knew even less than Carter had.

"Mark my words," he said, releasing the pair from his telekinetic hold. "The I.O.A. has just declared war on the Alterra…and so long as you serve them you are on the wrong side in this fight. They are the enemy of Earth, not us."

Stevenson pointed his thumb towards the gate.

Caldwell and Ellis took the cue and walked towards the open wormhole.

"One last thing," Stevenson said, stopping both of them just before they reached the event horizon. "If anyone serving the I.O.A. enters this galaxy again…you'll find us considerably less hospitable."

"We'll deliver the message," Caldwell said stiffly before walking through the gate.

Ellis hesitated. "For whatever it's worth…I'm sorry."

He followed Caldwell through the gate, then Stevenson mentally commanded it to shut down and return to its normal height. When he did, he also released his hold on Sheppard.

"What the hell was that?" Sheppard asked angrily.

Stevenson turned and looked him in the eye. He didn't say anything, but he did mentally transmit the memories he'd taken from Woolsey into the Colonel's mind.

Sheppard's eyes narrowed. "I should have shot the bastard a long time ago."

"Feel up to a field trip?" Stevenson asked.

Sheppard tilted his head in sudden comprehension. "You going after the Repository?"

Stevenson nodded.

"I'm in," Sheppard said without hesitation.

"We'll need to grab a jumper," Stevenson said, walking off with Sheppard.


End file.
